In clashes between Guards Corps and residents of villages in Babol, three persons, including two children (aged 2 and 8) were killed, 200 arrested

Residents of a number of villages around the city of Babol (northern Mazandaran province) staged a protest on Sunday, February 16, over the burial of the city's trash near their residential areas. They confronted the State Security Force and municipality workers dispatched to the area and thwarted the implementation of the plan.

The location chosen by the municipality as the city dump is near a wooded area in Enjil See region of Babol Kenar where 6,000 families live in seven villages.

During the clashes, three residents were killed and 200 were arrested. Some of the municipality's machines and equipment was also destroyed.

To suppress the enraged residents, the clerical regime dispatched a large contingent of the State Security Force, equipped with armored carriers and tear gas to the region.

Those killed are from the village of Deraz Kolie. One was Ali Norouzi. An eight-year-old child was killed when ran over by one of the armored carriers. A two-year-old girl fell from the roof top during clashes and instantly killed. Many of those injured are hospitalized due to their injuries in Babol's Beheshti and Yahya-nejad hospitals.

The suppressive forces also attacked the elementary school in the village of Deraz Kolie and terrified the young students by firing tear gas canisters. They assaulted a number of teachers and the school's principal, and arrested one of the employees.

The crackdown on the protest by residents around Babol is undertaken upon the orders of Khatami's administration and officials. It lays bare the repressive and criminal nature of the mullahs' President and renders hollow his rhetoric about "civil society," and the "rule of law."

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
February 19, 1999

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