Iranian security forces are targeting women at anti-regime protests, shooting at their faces, breasts and genitals, Guardian reported citing medics across the country.
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Doctors and nurses – treating protesters in secret to avoid arrest – said they first observed the practice after noticing that women often arrived with different wounds to men, the report said. Men commonly had shotgun pellets in their legs, buttocks and backs, it added.
Shots to the eyes of women, men and children were particularly common, the report said.
“I treated a woman in her early 20s, who was shot in her genitals by two pellets. Ten other pellets were lodged in her inner thigh. These 10 pellets were easily removed, but those two pellets were a challenge, because they were wedged in between her urethra and vaginal opening,” a physician told Guardian.
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“There was a serious risk of vaginal infection, so I asked her to go to a trusted gynaecologist. She said she was protesting when a group of about 10 security agents circled around and shot her in her genitals and thighs,” the physician added.
Some of the other medical professionals accused security forces of ignoring riot control practices, such as firing weapons at feet and legs to avoid damaging vital organs.
Protests have continued in Iran following the death in September of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini that ignited the boldest challenge to the hardline rule of the country’s clerics.
Mahsa Amini was arrested for improperly wearing her headscarf and then allegedly beaten into a coma by Iran’s morality police.
