Ahwaz Human Rights Organization welcomes the United States' inclusion of the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the Ahwaz region, (province of Khuzestan), Hassan Shahwarpour, on its sanctions list for his involvement in human rights violations and the commission of the November 2019 massacre in Maashur (Mahshar)

Brian Hook, the US special representative for Iran, said at a press conference on Friday that Shahwarpour was put on a list of sanctions related to visas because he had "committed gross human rights violations against demonstrators."

He added that Shahwarpour supervised a massacre of 148 unarmed citizens in the Maashur area last November.

Iran had acknowledged the occurrence of the massacre of Maashur when the Special Security Forces and the Revolutionary Guards stormed the town of Al-Jarahi and other towns of Maashur, such as Koura and Khor Musa, and used tanks, machine guns and heavy weaponry to kill dozens of Arab citizens, including women and children.

Hook said that the US State Department based in its decision to impose sanctions on Shahwarpour on information obtained from Iranian civilian messages about the demonstrations, pointing to the fact that they received more than 88 thousand messages from social media from Iranian people about the suppression of demonstrations in Iran.

Ahwaz Human Rights Organization strongly condemns the mass killing that took place against the demonstrators in Maashur and stresses that the excessive violence committed against the Ahwazi demonstrators amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The organization calls on international human rights bodies to condemn these massacres and the need for the international community and the Human Rights Council to take steps towards sending a truth commission and bringing the perpetrators of these crimes to justice.

Ahwaz Human Rights Organization
January 17, 2020