Iranian security forces have been targeting women at protests by firing bullets at their faces, breasts and genitals, it has been revealed.
Doctors and nurses revealed to the Guardian that women have been arriving in hospitals with different wounds to men and had been presenting with shotgun fire to their faces, breasts and genitals.
“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,” one doctor told the Guardian.
They said there was a serious risk of vaginal infection and that the woman said she succumbed to the injuries when she was protesting and a group of about 10 security agents circled around and shot her in her genitals and thighs.
Protestors have been demanding the overthrow of Iran's clerical rulers following the tragic death of Mahsa Amini, 22, who died in police custody.
Ms Amini was arrested for so-called improper dress as her hair was not properly covered.
The anonymous doctor found the experience of treating her harrowing and said: “She could have been my own daughter.”
One doctor from the central Isfahan province said to the Guardian that he thought authorities were targeting men and women in different ways “because they wanted to destroy the beauty of these women”.
Photos provided by medics to the Guardian showed horrific bullet wounds all over people's bodies from so-called birdshot pellets.
X-rays provided showed people's bodies littered with tiny “shot” balls lodged deep in their flesh.
Another doctor from Karaj, a city near Tehran, said they thought the security forces shot at the genitals of women because they have "an inferiority complex and they want to get rid of their sexual complexes by hurting these young people.”
On Thursday, Iran executed a prisoner convicted for a crime allegedly committed during the country's ongoing protests, the first such death penalty carried out by Tehran.
Mohsen Shekari was reportedly hanged on Thursday morning after he was found guilty by a Revolutionary Court of "enmity against God".
Activists warn that others could also be put to death in the near future, saying that at least a dozen people so far have received death sentences over their involvement in the demonstrations in solidarity with the death of Ms Amini.
