GENEVA: The UN Human Rights Council decided Friday to deepen its scrutiny of Iran over its crackdown on protests that left thousands dead, including children, amid demands it end its “brutal repression”.
The 47-member body voiced alarm about “the unprecedented scale of the violent crackdown on peaceful protests by security forces” in Iran.
With 25 votes in favour, seven opposed and the rest abstaining, it decided to extend and broaden the mandate of independent investigators gathering evidence towards ensuring accountability for rights violations in the country.
“A climate of fear and systematic impunity cannot be tolerated,” Iceland’s ambassador Einar Gunnarsson said as he presented the text to the council before the vote. “Victims and survivors deserve truth, justice and accountability.”
Stressing the need for “accountability”, the adopted text extends the mandate of a special rapporteur on Iran for another year.
It also extended for two years the work of a separate fact-finding mission set up in November 2022, following Iran’s crackdown on a wave of protests sparked by the death in custody of an Iranian Kurdish woman named Mahsa Amini.
The resolution empowers the investigative body to probe “allegations of recent and ongoing serious human rights violations and abuses, and crimes perpetrated in relation to the protests”.
The vote came at the end of an urgent session of the rights council, requested by Britain, Germany, Iceland, Moldova and North Macedonia, but harshly criticised by Iran.
In his opening remarks to the council, UN rights chief Volker Turk described how security forces used “live ammunition” against protesters, decrying that “thousands” had been killed, including children.
“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.
“There must be accountability for the dire events of the past weeks, and justice must be done for all those who were killed, injured or detained only for exercising their human rights and for voicing legitimate demands,” the European Union representative Michele Cervone d’Urso told the gathering.
Iranian ambassador Ali Bahreini however slammed Friday’s meeting as “posturing” and “a pressure tool against Iran”. His colleague Somayeh Karimdoost described the resolution as “a thoroughly unbalanced biased and politically motivated text”.
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