During the unveiling of the State Department’s annual human rights report on Wednesday, U.S Secretary of State Mike Pompeo honored the murdered Iranian protesters in November uprising.

“Today I want great Iranians like the Bakhtiaris to know America remembers those lost and stands for their freedom,” Pompeo said.

Pompeo spoke about Pouya Bakhtiary, a student killed by the regime’s security forces among hundreds of other pro-democracy protesters in November 2019.

“He was a young engineer, one of hundreds of thousands of Iranians who protested the regime last fall. His mother, Nahid, was with him,” Pompeo said. “By the end of the day, they were no longer marching shoulder to shoulder. Nahid was holding her 27-year-old son’s body. Pouya had been shot in the head by security forces.”

He added that “the regime has denied the family the right to mourn Pouya in accordance with their faith.  When they tried to hold a funeral, Pouya’s 11-year-old nephew, his grandparents, his parents, and other relatives were all arrested.”

 “In response to widespread protests that began November 15 after a fuel price increase, the government blocked almost all international and local internet connections for most of a week, and security forces used lethal force to end the protests, killing approximately 1,500 persons and detaining 8,600, according to international media reports,” the State Department reports says.

The report also mentions “significant human rights issues included executions for crimes not meeting the international legal standard of ‘most serious crimes’ and without fair trials of individuals, including juvenile offenders; numerous reports of unlawful or arbitrary killings, forced disappearance, and torture by government agents, as well as the systematic use of arbitrary detention and imprisonment; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions.”