A United Nations official on Iran said today that she has received reports of protesters connected to the country’s demonstrations being removed from hospitals and detained by Iranian security forces, a serious violation of the right to medical care under international law.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Iran, Maj Sato, also told Reuters in an interview that families are being asked to pay ransoms of $5,000 to $7,000 to recover the bodies of their loved ones.

The anti-government protests that shook Iran since December triggered the deadliest crackdown by authorities since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, drawing international condemnation. Iran has blocked internet access since January 8.

The US-based human rights organization HRANA reports a toll of at least 5,937 deaths in the unrest, including 214 security personnel, while official figures put the number of victims at 3,117. Reuters has not been able to independently verify these numbers.

Sato, who also teaches at Birkbeck University in London, said she cannot independently verify the death toll either, but believes the number of victims is far higher than official figures.

“There are many testimonies from hospital staff (from several provinces in Iran) reporting that security forces raided their hospitals,” the official said, “as well as from families who go the next day and find their loved ones no longer in the hospital.”

The Iranian mission in Geneva has so far not responded to Reuters’ request for comment on the allegations.

Medical personnel in Iran who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity confirmed some of the reports mentioned by Sato.

“Dozens of patients were hospitalized in our hospitals with gunshot wounds. They underwent surgery, and then the Revolutionary Guards came and took them. We do not know what happened to them,” said a doctor in the city of Rasht in northern Iran.

A nurse and two doctors in hospitals in Tehran also told Reuters that members of the Revolutionary Guards and the police visited their facilities, demanding patient files for those who had been hospitalized and discharged, in order to arrest them.

“They checked every room in the hospital, looking for injured protesters,” the nurse said.

Citizens hesitate to seek medical help for fear of arrest

Such actions have a terrifying effect, preventing citizens from seeking medical care, at risk of dying or worsening their health due to fear of arrest, Sato noted.

These behaviors also constitute a serious violation of medical neutrality, she added. Under the Geneva Conventions, doctors, hospitals, and patients must be protected to ensure the provision of impartial care.

Unarmed protesters in 31 Iranian provinces were shot in the chest and head, targeting vital organs, an indication of the lethal violence used indiscriminately by security forces, Sato said, citing eyewitness accounts.

“In these incidents, this would indicate unlawful deaths and extrajudicial executions,” she emphasized, adding that reports also document an increase in eye injuries from pellets.

Regarding reports that Iranian authorities demand ransoms, Sato said: “This practice really mixes pain with extortion.”

Tehran encourages injured protesters to go to hospitals

On the other hand, Iran’s Ministry of Health today encouraged people injured in recent protests to go to hospitals.

“Our advice (…) is that if you suffer from an injury, do not try to treat it at home, and you should not worry about going to a medical center,” the ministry said in a press release broadcast by state television.

According to Amnesty International, an 18-year-old man, Amirhossein Ghanderzadeh, was arrested at his home by security forces, who also asked his sisters, including a minor, to undress to see if the girls had injuries. The young man, who had been shot, was subsequently arrested, according to the NGO.

In a photo circulated on social media, whose authenticity the French news agency AFP has not been able to verify, three women are seen in a house using a mobile phone flashlight to remove about twenty pellets from the back of a woman lying down.