E/CN.4/2000/9 page 120 number of students were reportedly killed or seriously injured. Furthermore, a large number of student activists, and also journalists and members of opposition political parties, were reportedly arrested in connection with the demonstrations and were being held in incommunicado detention, including at Evin prison, but the whereabouts of most of them was still unknown. Among those arrested were Mohammad Massod Salamati, Seyed Djavad Emami and Parviz Safari, and other members of the Tabarzadi group. Khosrow Seif, the 70-year-old spokesperson of the banned opposition political party, the Iran Nation Party, as well as Behzad Namazi, Mehran Abdolbaghi, Safaritar, Mir Abdolbaghi Kashani, Mehran Gorkani, Farzin Mokhber and Esmaeil Moftizadeh, all members of the Iran Nation Party, had reportedly been detained at their homes on 14 July 1999. Their current whereabouts were unknown. Maryam Shansi, a student leader and a member of the Jonbesh-e Demokratik-e Meli-ye Iran (National Democratic Movement of Iran), had reportedly been attacked, beaten in her home, and arrested on 12 July 1999 and her current whereabouts were unknown. Manuchehr Mohammadi and Gholamreza Mohajeri-Nezhad, two student activists members of the Anjoman-e Daneshjuyan va Daneshamukhtegan Meli (National Association of Students and Graduates), had reportedly been arrested in Tehran on 13 July 1999. They were reportedly detained incommunicado. 610. On 25 August 1999, the Special Rapporteur sent a joint urgent appeal with the Special Representative on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran on behalf of Gholamreza Qobeh, a former deputy mayor of Tehran, who had reportedly been arrested in April 1998 on charges of embezzlement and diverting public funds and had been sentenced to 50 lashes and six years in prison. The sentence was reportedly upheld by an appeals court. Iraq Urgent appeals and replies received 611. On 24 February 1999, the Special Rapporteur sent a joint urgent appeal with the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions on behalf of a number of persons recently arrested in connection with the killing of Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr and his two sons on the night of 18 February 1999. Widespread protests had reportedly erupted at the news of the killings, particularly in the Shi'a Muslim dominated district of al-Hawra in Baghdad and in the southern cities of Karbala', al-Nassiriya, al-Illa and al-Najaf. Security forces had reportedly opened fire, killing dozens of protesters. Several hundred others were said to have been arrested. 612. By letters dated 8 and 19 March 1999, the Government responded to this urgent appeal. An investigation was being undertaken in relation to the murder of the persons mentioned above. The Government indicated that four individuals had been arrested on suspicion of having carried out a fatwa issued in a manner inconsistent with Islamic values and traditions against the late Sayyid. With regard to reported widespread protests afterwards, the Government denied these having taken place. With regard to arrested suspects, the Government replied that allegations of ill-treatment were biased. 613. On 6 August 1999, the Special Rapporteur sent an urgent appeal on behalf of Jotiar Yahia Latif al-Salihi, Rawiya, his wife, and their two children, Chimen, aged 3, and Latif, aged 1, who, in an effort to escape persecution in Iraq, had moved to Jordan about five months previously and applied for asylum at the UNHCR in Amman. On 9 July 1999, the family reportedly went shopping and did