<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>Iran militia raid hospitals; seize injured protesters
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>Pro-govt gunmen also attack homes of those disputing election result </TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->TEHERAN: Iran appears to be intensifying its crackdown on opposition protesters ahead of today's official verdict on the disputed election result, with militiamen reportedly seizing injured demonstrators from hospitals.
Iran's semi-official Fars news agency also reported yesterday that eight local members of the British Embassy's staff had been arrested for playing a 'considerable role' in the riots over the country's disputed presidential election.
The move appeared to be part of attempts by the hardline leadership to blame post-election unrest on foreign powers, not popular anger and disbelief in official results showing hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won re-election by a landslide in June 12 polls.
The news of the arrests, which British Foreign Secretary David Miliband condemned as 'harassment' and 'intimidation', came as CNN quoted Amnesty International as saying members of the Basij Islamic militia were waiting at hospitals and taking injured protesters away.
Ms Banafsheh Akhlaghi, western regional director of the human rights group, said it had collected accounts from people who have left Iran and expatriates with relatives there who say the government's paramilitary wing has been stopping hospital staff from taking identification information from wounded demonstrators who check in.
And she said that once the patients have been treated, the Basij remove them to an undisclosed location.
One woman, who has since fled to the United States and spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear for her safety, told CNN that she broke an ankle and a thumb during a demonstration, but had a doctor come to treat her as she was too afraid to risk being seized by the militiamen if she went to hospital. A friend who travelled with her said: 'The point is, when they are being taken to the hospital they don't actually get there.'
More than 2,000 people are still in detention and hundreds more are missing since the government crackdown began, the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights said yesterday.
Advocacy group Human Rights Watch says the Basij are also waging a campaign of violence and intimidation in Teheran's residential districts, invading private homes and beating residents in an attempt to stop protests against the disputed election.
'Witnesses are telling us that the Basijis are trashing entire streets and even neighbourhoods as well as individual homes trying to stop the nightly rooftop protest chants,' Ms Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said.
The group quoted a middle-aged resident of Vanak district as saying: 'While we were shouting 'Allahu Akbar' from the rooftops...the Basiji entered our neighbourhood and started firing live rounds into the air, in the direction of the buildings from which they believe the shouting of 'Allahu Akbar' is coming.'
A woman said Basijis climbed over walls to enter homes after they failed to kick down doors in Velenjak district when people were shouting from rooftops on June 23. 'When they entered the homes, they beat the residents. The neighbours took to cursing the Basijis and throwing stones at them to divert them from beating the residents, but then the Basijis attacked those neighbours' houses,' she was quoted as saying.
Another resident was quoted as saying Basijis spray-painted a sign on the doors of houses in a central district where they thought protesters had fled. 'A few minutes later, they came back and attacked the marked houses, breaking down the doors and entering them. They beat the owners, and broke the windows in the houses,' the resident said.
Human Rights Watch said it had received similar reports from other parts of Teheran including Niavaran, Farmanieh, Saadat Abad, Shahrak Gharb, and Vanak Square - mostly upper-class districts.
The Guardian Council, Iran's top legislative body, is to give its final verdict on the election by today, but appears highly unlikely to bow to protesters' demands for a rerun of the election.
The 12-man body has offered a partial recount - rejected by runner-up Mir Hossein Mousavi, who says the vote was rigged - but it has already described the poll as the healthiest since the revolution.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS
<HR SIZE=1 width="50%">
'...the Basijis are trashing entire streets and even neighbourhoods.'
Ms Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>Pro-govt gunmen also attack homes of those disputing election result </TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->TEHERAN: Iran appears to be intensifying its crackdown on opposition protesters ahead of today's official verdict on the disputed election result, with militiamen reportedly seizing injured demonstrators from hospitals.
Iran's semi-official Fars news agency also reported yesterday that eight local members of the British Embassy's staff had been arrested for playing a 'considerable role' in the riots over the country's disputed presidential election.
The move appeared to be part of attempts by the hardline leadership to blame post-election unrest on foreign powers, not popular anger and disbelief in official results showing hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won re-election by a landslide in June 12 polls.
The news of the arrests, which British Foreign Secretary David Miliband condemned as 'harassment' and 'intimidation', came as CNN quoted Amnesty International as saying members of the Basij Islamic militia were waiting at hospitals and taking injured protesters away.
Ms Banafsheh Akhlaghi, western regional director of the human rights group, said it had collected accounts from people who have left Iran and expatriates with relatives there who say the government's paramilitary wing has been stopping hospital staff from taking identification information from wounded demonstrators who check in.
And she said that once the patients have been treated, the Basij remove them to an undisclosed location.
One woman, who has since fled to the United States and spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear for her safety, told CNN that she broke an ankle and a thumb during a demonstration, but had a doctor come to treat her as she was too afraid to risk being seized by the militiamen if she went to hospital. A friend who travelled with her said: 'The point is, when they are being taken to the hospital they don't actually get there.'
More than 2,000 people are still in detention and hundreds more are missing since the government crackdown began, the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights said yesterday.
Advocacy group Human Rights Watch says the Basij are also waging a campaign of violence and intimidation in Teheran's residential districts, invading private homes and beating residents in an attempt to stop protests against the disputed election.
'Witnesses are telling us that the Basijis are trashing entire streets and even neighbourhoods as well as individual homes trying to stop the nightly rooftop protest chants,' Ms Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said.
The group quoted a middle-aged resident of Vanak district as saying: 'While we were shouting 'Allahu Akbar' from the rooftops...the Basiji entered our neighbourhood and started firing live rounds into the air, in the direction of the buildings from which they believe the shouting of 'Allahu Akbar' is coming.'
A woman said Basijis climbed over walls to enter homes after they failed to kick down doors in Velenjak district when people were shouting from rooftops on June 23. 'When they entered the homes, they beat the residents. The neighbours took to cursing the Basijis and throwing stones at them to divert them from beating the residents, but then the Basijis attacked those neighbours' houses,' she was quoted as saying.
Another resident was quoted as saying Basijis spray-painted a sign on the doors of houses in a central district where they thought protesters had fled. 'A few minutes later, they came back and attacked the marked houses, breaking down the doors and entering them. They beat the owners, and broke the windows in the houses,' the resident said.
Human Rights Watch said it had received similar reports from other parts of Teheran including Niavaran, Farmanieh, Saadat Abad, Shahrak Gharb, and Vanak Square - mostly upper-class districts.
The Guardian Council, Iran's top legislative body, is to give its final verdict on the election by today, but appears highly unlikely to bow to protesters' demands for a rerun of the election.
The 12-man body has offered a partial recount - rejected by runner-up Mir Hossein Mousavi, who says the vote was rigged - but it has already described the poll as the healthiest since the revolution.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS
<HR SIZE=1 width="50%">
'...the Basijis are trashing entire streets and even neighbourhoods.'
Ms Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch
