Tales of bloody Iran protest crackdown at border crossing

Soran raises two fingers to his left temple and motions firing a gun. "If you talk, they will put a bullet in your head," he tells me.

Around us, the Iranian mountains reach skywards. We're at a bus station in Penjwen, a town in Iraq's northern Kurdistan region that is close to the crossing post on the border with Iran. Cars sporadically pull in and discharge their occupants into the dusty courtyard. Some pause and drink tea, while others climb straight into the small minibuses that'll take them to the nearby Iraqi city of Sulaimaniya.

Soran uses his hands often when he talks. His feet too, as he kicks out to show me how he was beaten by Iranian security forces.

"It happened a few days ago when I was protesting," he says. "The regime beat me in the back, they kicked me and used truncheons to hit me. They shot my friend, and others too. All because I took part in the demonstrations." read more