Thousands have been arrested including children as young as 15 in a crackdown that followed the protests last month, the London-based campaigning organisation said. In a statement, Amnesty explained: ”At least 304 people were killed and thousands were injured between 15 and 18 November as Iranian authorities crushed protests using lethal force.”
Amnesty said earlier this month that at least 208 were killed in the protests.
Iranian authorities have dismissed Amnesty’s previous figures and have yet to give a death toll from the deadliest protests In Iran in decades.
Hundreds of young and working-class Iranians took to the streets on November 15 to protest against fuel price rises.
The protests quickly turned political, with demonstrators burning pictures of senior officials and calling on clerical rulers to step down.
Iranian authorities earlier this month acknowledged that some “rioters” were shot and killed by security forces.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei denounced the unrest as a “very dangerous conspiracy” by Iran’s enemies.
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“Without urgent international pressure, thousands will remain at risk of torture and other ill-treatment.
“The international community must take urgent action, including through the UN Human Rights Council holding a special session on Iran to mandate an inquiry into the unlawful killings of protesters, horrifying wave of arrests, and enforced disappearances and torture of detainees, with a view to ensuring accountability.”
Citing “credible sources”, Amnesty said in Raja’i Shahr prison in the city of Karaj, hundreds of detainees, including children, had been brought in trucks to the jail, with handcuffed and blindfolded detainees punched, kicked, flogged and beaten with batons by security forces.
One video which has been verified and geolocated by the Amnesty’s Digital Verification Corps showed detainees being taken into the grounds of Mali Abad police station in the city of Shiraz, where they are beaten, punched and kicked by security forces.
Separate video footage also verified by Amnesty, and backed up by witness testimony, shows Iranian security forces opened fire on unarmed protesters.
Most deaths recorded by Amnesty were the result of gunshots to the head, heart, neck or other vital organs, suggesting the security forces were shooting to kill.
On December 6, the United Nations human rights office said at least 208 people have been killed but the real toll could be twice that. The UN says at least 12 children are among those who were killed.
At least 7,000 people had been arrested, the UN said.