New names of the victims of Iran’s canebrake massacre in Mahshahr in the November 2019 protests
During the anti-government protests of November 2019, many cities rose up against Iran’s regime. One city which saw widespread protests and severe confrontation with the regime was Mahshahr. Fearing the spread of the uprising, the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) forces used heavy armor and attacked the people who hid in the reeds in fear of the regime’s brutality. The IRGC played a key role in this crime. In fact, they turned the ‘Neyzar of Mahshahr’ into a slaughterhouse.
No one still knows exactly how many were killed in this massacre. The names of many of the victims are still unknown. Authorities cut off the internet at the time of the disaster, so not many photos and videos of that scene were sent to the world. A silent massacre took place.
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But now, almost a year after the regime’s inhuman crime, new dimensions of that crime are slowly unfolding. Recently, the ‘Human Rights Center, no to imprisonment, no to execution’ has been able to obtain the names and details of 20 other victims of the massacre. These names are published, to receive more information about them and other victims:
Ehsan Sadeghi, Ahmad Rouhanifar, Asghar Rajaei, Amir Bushehri, Jaber Saberi, Jafar Panahi, Jamshid Molhan, Javad Babaei, Javad Negahrat, Hassan Veisi, Hayavi Sharifat, Abbas Ansarian, Ali Jelveh, Alireza Qanavati, Kamran Davari, Kourosh Ahvazi, Mojtaba Rezaei, Mohsen Sarafraz, Morsha Dehi, Homayoun Dashti.
About the massacre in Mahshahr’s Neyzar (canebrake):
The IRGC massacred the youth during the nationwide protest of November 2019 in various cities, including Mahshahr in the south of Iran which was one of the regime’s most serious crimes.
The Khuzestan’s IRGC Division sent a special commando brigade to Mahshahr on Monday, November 18, 2019, with two tanks and six armored personnel carriers, a large quantity of heavy and semi-heavy weapons, and a number of military helicopters.
The people of Mahshahr closed only by burning tires and placing stones on the road leading to Khomeini port. The savagery of the supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s mercenaries and the IRGC was many times greater than in other cities. They carried out a massacre. Witnesses said the reason for the savagery was the closure of the traffic route to the IRGC’s Special Economic and Petrochemical Zone.
At the time, various news outlets, including the ANF, Radio France International (RFI), the New York Times, and other news outlets, reported on the massacre. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, and the then U.S. Special Representative for Iran, Brian Hook, as well as the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, condemned the killing at that time.
The US State Department website in a press statement on January 18, 2020, wrote: “Yesterday, the Department of State designated Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Hassan Shahvarpour, Khuzestan Province’s Vali Asr Commander, for his involvement in gross violations of human rights against protestors during the November protests in Mahshahr, Iran. According to multiple media reports and information submitted by the Iranian people through the Department of State’s Rewards for Justice tip-line, IRGC units under Shahvarpour’s command killed as many as 148 Iranians when they encircled fleeing protestors in armored vehicles, firing machine guns into the crowd and lighting fire to the marsh in which the protestors took cover.”
