"She took back roads to avoid security checkpoints, where hulking officers were strip-searching passengers to look for injuries or any evidence of their participation in the uprising that had recently swept the country. Around 2 A.M., the doctor arrived safely at the clinic, where she slipped a glove over the man's hand to hide his injury. Then she led him past reception, to a specialist who was waiting to receive him."
"Many government-run hospitals began operating as an extension of the regime's security forces, targeting anyone who dared to seek treatment. Some of the injured were detained in wards, sometimes while under anesthesia. Others were denied care altogether. Many didn't make it as far as the hospital before they were detained. In response, medical professionals throughout the country have forged secret units to treat those injured in the assault."
"During the demonstrations on January 8th, after snipers started firing at protesters, the doctor in Tehran, whom I will call Narges, followed a trail of blood into an apartment building, where an injured woman had taken cover. Narges, a general practitioner in her thirties, fashioned a tourniquet from a head scarf to save the woman's leg from a bullet wound."
The regime imposed a forced forgetting of January massacres while targeting wounded protesters and the medical workers who witnessed atrocities. Security forces massacred thousands over several days and set up checkpoints where officers strip-searched passengers for injuries or evidence of participation. Many government hospitals acted as extensions of security forces, detaining injured patients, sometimes under anesthesia, or denying care. Medical professionals created secret units and used private clinics and covert routes to treat war injuries, improvising tourniquets and shielding victims from arrest. General practitioners rapidly shifted from treating routine illnesses to battlefield wounds.
Read at The New Yorker
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