URGENT
- Abadan uprising, Statement No. 8
Number of detainees in Abadan uprising exceeds 800
- Iranian Resistance's urgent appeal to international authorities and human rights organizations to intervene immediately to save the lives of detainees

Units of State Security Forces and Intelligence Ministry agents raided the homes of 134 residents of Abadan today and arrested them as security forces continued the widespread arrest of young people throughout the city, the Mojahedin Command headquarters in Iran reported. The arrests, which coincided with an abortive government-organized counter-demonstration, raised the number of people arrested and still detained in the past three days to over 800.

The report added that the detainees are being interrogated under torture by dozens of teams of interrogators and torturers brought in from the Intelligence Ministry, the State Security Forces' intelligence directorate and the Revolutionary Guards' intelligence department.

The uprising that has shaken Iran's oldest and largest oil port city has aroused profound fears among the ruling mullahs, particularly as thousands of protesters on the streets of Abadan were chanting "down with Khamenei," "down with Khatami," "down with the mullahs' regime" and slogans against the Revolutionary Guards and the paramilitary Bassij. In confidential reports to Tehran, the local authorities stated that "some extremely ugly and repulsive slogans were being chanted against His Eminence the Supreme Leader, His Excellency the President, and other senior authorities of the Islamic Republic, while the institution of the clergy, the Revolutionary Guards and the Bassij were also insulted."

Today's savage raids on the homes of Abadan citizens have aggravated the anger and fury of the city's residents and the atmosphere throughout Abadan is extremely tense.

The mullahs' regime held a counter-demonstration in the city today, but fewer than 1,500 individuals, all of them members of Bassij and Revolutionary Guards, took part. They were chanting "down with the riot-making Monafeqin (Mojahedin)," "mutinous Monafeqin (Mojahedin) must be hanged," "seditious Monafeqin (Mojahedin) must be executed."

At least 19 protesters have been killed and hundreds wounded in the bloody uprising which was sparked off by acute water shortage.

The Iranian Resistance urges the UN Secretary General, the Security Council, the Commission on Human Rights and all human rights organizations and advocates across the world to act immediately to save the lives of the innocent detainees now under brutal torture in the mullahs' jails. It calls for the immediate dispatch of an international mission to inspect the jails and detention centers in Abadan and Khorramshahr.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
July 7, 2000

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