Female protesters are being shot in the face, breasts, and genitals by Iranian security forces, report says

• Iran's security forces are shooting women's faces, breasts, and genitals, medics say, per The Guardian.
• Several doctors told The Guardian that women had different wounds to male protesters.

Iran's security forces armed with shotguns are firing at the faces, breasts, and genitals of female anti-regime protesters, according to interviews with several medics across the country, per The Guardian's exclusive.

Several doctors treating protesters in secret to avoid arrest told The Guardian they observed female protesters had different wounds to male patients.

They said men usually had shotgun pellets on their legs, buttocks, and backs. In contrast, women had close-range shots to more intimate areas, The Guardian's Deepa Parent and Ghoncheh Habibiazad reported.

One physician from the Isfahan province in central Iran told The Guardian that men and women were being targeted differently "because they wanted to destroy the beauty of these women."

The physician said he treated one woman in her 20s who had been hit by two pellets in her genitals, adding that there were 10 other pellets in her inner thigh, per The Guardian.

"Those two pellets were a challenge because they were wedged in between her urethra and vaginal opening," the physician said, according to the newspaper. "There was a serious risk of vaginal infection, so I asked her to go to a trusted gynecologist. She said she was protesting when a group of about 10 security agents circled around and shot her in her genitals and thighs."

Another doctor from Karaj, a city close to Tehran, accused Iranian security forces of shooting at the private body parts and faces of female protesters because of "an inferiority complex," The Guardian reported. He said they "want to get rid of their sexual complexes by hurting these young people," per the newspaper.

Violent protests have endured throughout Iran since the death of Mahsa Amini in September.

The 22-year-old Iranian woman died in Tehran under suspicious circumstances. Before her death, the morality police had arrested Amini for not wearing a hijab scarf to cover her hair. Eyewitnesses said she was the victim of police brutality.

After her death, Iranians began protesting against the country's Islamic regime and its strict rules regarding modest dress for women. During numerous street protests, women removed their headscarves and cut their hair in acts of defiance.

According to the human rights group HRANA, as many as 469 protesters may have been killed in violent clashes with security forces, per Reuters.

On Thursday morning, Iran announced the first execution of a protester. Mohsen Shekari was hanged after being convicted by a Revolutionary Court of enmity against God, according to state media, per BBC News.