DUBAI – With demonstrations showing no signs of abating, Iran will reject a newly appointed independent UN investigation into the suppression of anti-government protests in the country, the foreign ministry said on Monday.
“Iran will not cooperate with the political committee formed by the UN Human Rights Council,” said ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani.
The UN Rights Council voted Thursday to appoint an inquiry Iran’s deadly crackdown on protests.
UN rights commissioner Volker Turk had called on Iran to end its “unjustifiable” use of force to quell protests that erupted on October 11, 2018. Death in custody of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini September 16th.
Activist news agency HRANA said 450 protesters, including 63 minors, had died as of November 26 in more than two months of nationwide rioting.
60 members of the security forces were killed and 18,173 protesters were detained.
Protesters from all walks of life who challenge the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic have burned pictures of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and called for the overthrow of Iran’s Shia Muslim theocracy.
While the protests initially focused on women’s rights, Amini was detained by morality police for wearing clothes deemed inappropriate under Iran’s Islamic dress code.
The unrest has become one of the most daring challenges for Iran’s ruling clerical elite since the 1979 Islamic Revolution brought Iran to power, but authorities have shunned mass protests so far. has been suppressed.
Iran blames foreign enemies and their proxies for the unrest.
Kanani said on Monday that Iran had evidence that Western countries were involved in the protests that swept the country.
“We have concrete information that proves that the United States, Western countries, and some of the United States’ allies were involved in the protests,” he said, without elaborating.
Iran has not released a death toll among demonstrators, but Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Khani said about 50 police officers were killed and hundreds injured in the unrest.
It did not say whether the figure includes deaths from other security forces, such as the Revolutionary Guard.Reuters
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/middle-east/iran-rejects-un-investigation-into-protests Iran rejects UN investigation into protests