UN urges Iran to end 'brutal repression'

Speaking at an urgent UN Human Rights Council meeting on the situation in Iran, UN rights chief Volker Turk voiced alarm at the authorities' crushing of recent demonstrations, describing how security forces used "live ammunition" against protesters.

Lamenting that "thousands" had been killed, he described how "peaceful protesters were reportedly killed in the streets and in residential areas, including universities and medical facilities", while bodies in morgues showed "fatal injuries to the head and chest".

"I call on the Iranian authorities to reconsider, to pull back, and to end their brutal repression, including summary trials and disproportionate sentences," he said.

"I call for the immediate release of all those arbitrarily detained by the Iranian authorities, and I call for a complete moratorium on the death penalty."

His comments were broadly echoed during the rights council special session, which was requested by Britain, Germany, Iceland, Moldova and North Macedonia with broad international backing.
'Cannot look away'
"When a government itself becomes the perpetrator of violations, it is our collective responsibility to act," Icelandic Foreign Minister Thorgerdur Katrin Gunnarsdottir told the meeting.

"This council and the world cannot look away. Violence against peaceful protesters and mass killings must stop."

At the meeting, which was slammed by Iran, the 47-member body was discussing a proposed resolution voicing "deep concern about the unprecedented scale of the violent crackdown on peaceful protests by security forces" in Iran.

Turk's office and NGOs tracking the toll from the crackdown on the biggest protests in Iran in years have said their task has been impeded by a now two-week internet shutdown.

Giving their first official toll from the protests, Iranian authorities on Wednesday said 3,117 people had been killed since the massive demonstrations erupted late December.

But the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency on Friday put the number of deaths at more than 5,000, warning the confirmed figures are likely to be far lower than the actual toll.

Another NGO, Norway-based Iran Human Rights, has warned the final toll risks reaching the scale of 25,000.
'Chilling'
He decried the "chilling development" in which Iran's judiciary chief this week said there would be no leniency for the thousands detained.

"I am deeply concerned by contradictory statements from the Iranian authorities about whether those detained in connection with the protests may be executed," Turk said.

He pointed out that Iran "remains among the top executioner states in the world", with at least 1,500 people reportedly executed there last year.

Britain's human rights ambassador Eleanor Sanders also decried "Iran's abhorrent use of the death penalty", maintaining that "on average, around six people are executed each day in Iran".

She and many others demanded that Iranian authorities be "held accountable" for the deadly crackdown on the protests.

The draft text being discussed Friday would extend for two years the mandate of an independent fact-finding mission on the situation in Iran set up in November 2022, following a crackdown on a wave of protests sparked by the death in custody of an Iranian Kurdish woman named Mahsa Amini.

It also would empower the investigative body to probe "allegations of recent and ongoing serious human rights violations and abuses, and crimes perpetrated in relation to the protests".

Iranian ambassador Ali Bahreini slammed Friday's meeting as "posturing" and "a pressure tool against Iran".

"The Islamic Republic of Iran does not recognise the legitimacy or validity of this special session, and its subsequent resolution," he insisted.

Iran received backing from a number of countries, charging that the decision to hold the special session was "politicised" and exposed "double standards".

China's ambassador Jia Guide said his country "opposed interference in other countries' internal affairs on the pretext of human rights".