GENEVA: The United Nations rights chief decried Friday that “thousands” of people, including children, had died in Iran’s crackdown on nationwide protests, and urged the authorities to “end their brutal repression”.
Speaking at the start of an urgent UN Human Rights Council meeting on the situation in Iran, Volker Turk insisted that “the violent repression of the Iranian people does not solve any of the country’s problems”.
“On the contrary: it creates conditions for further human rights violations, instability and bloodshed,” he warned.
The UN rights chief said that “thousands of people, including children, were killed in the course of a security crackdown that intensified on January 8, with the use of live ammunition by the security forces against demonstrators”.
Giving their first official toll from the protests, Iranian authorities on Wednesday said 3,117 people were killed.
But the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) 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 (IHR), says it has documented at least 3,428 killings of protesters by the security forces and warned that the final toll risks reaching the scale of 25,000.
Both the UN rights 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.
“Peaceful protesters were reportedly killed in the streets and in residential areas, including universities and medical facilities,” Turk said.
“Video evidence appears to show hundreds of bodies in morgues, with fatal injuries to the head and chest. Hundreds of security personnel were reportedly also killed,” he said.
The protests have now largely halted, but while “the killing in the streets of Iran may have subsided… the brutality continues”, Turk warned.
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.
Describing the protests that have rocked Iran as just “the latest in a long line of heartfelt calls by the Iranian people for change”, Turk called on the authorities “to reconsider, to pull back, and to end their brutal repression”.