Geneva, Switzerland. The UN Human Rights Council condemned Iran for rights abuses and mandated an investigation into a recent crackdown on anti-government protests. The council extended a previous inquiry set up in 2022 to document the latest unrest for potential future legal proceedings.
Emergency session and call to end repression
High Commissioner Volker Turk told an emergency session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that he was concerned for detainees and called on Iranian authorities to end what he described as brutal repression.
Mandate expanded for UN investigators
The council passed a motion extending a 2022 inquiry so UN investigators could also document the latest unrest “for potential future legal proceedings”.
Iran rejects resolution and cites accountability mechanisms
Iran’s mission criticised the rights council’s resolution as “politicised” and rejected external interference, saying in a statement it had independent accountability mechanisms to investigate “the root causes of recent events”.
Accounts of deaths and responsibility
Rights groups said bystanders were among those killed during what they described as the biggest crackdown since Shi’ite Muslim clerics took power in the 1979 revolution. Tehran blamed “terrorists and rioters” backed by exiled opponents and foreign foes the United States and Israel.
Iran’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, told the Council the emergency session was invalid and cited Tehran’s tally of some 3,000 people killed in the unrest. One Iranian official told Reuters that at least 5,000 people, including 500 members of the security forces, had been killed.
The US-based HRANA rights group said it has verified 4,519 unrest-linked deaths and had 9,049 additional deaths under review.
Voting results and statements at the meeting
Twenty-five states including France, Mexico and South Korea voted in favour of the motion, while seven including China and India voted against and 14 abstained.
Payam Akhavan, a former UN prosecutor of Iranian-Canadian nationality, told the meeting, “This is the worst mass murder in the contemporary history of Iran,” and called for a “Nuremberg moment”, referring to international criminal trials of Nazi leaders following World War Two.
How do you think the expanded UN inquiry could affect future legal proceedings related to the unrest in Iran?