Transparent identification Calls grow for inquiry into protest deaths

Pressure mounts after government says it will publish names of people killed during recent unrest

- By Patrick Wintour

Calls are growing inside Iran for an independent inquiry into the number of people killed during recent protests after the government said it would oversee the publication of the names of the deceased.

The highly unusual government move, announced last Thursday, is designed to head off claims that crimes against humanity have been committed and that as many as 30,000 Iranians have been killed. Iran's official death toll released by the Martyr's Foundation is 3,117, including members of the security services.

Iranian reformists said the planned government identification process was not sufficiently transparent and unlikely to end the dispute about how many people had been killed.

Mohsen Borhani, a law professor at Tehran University and a critic of the Iranian government who has served time in Evin prison, said the government proposal to identify the dead publicly was a positive development because in previous major protests, Iranians "faced an absolute lack of information regarding the deceased and injured".