© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A police motorbike burns throughout a protest over the demise of Mahsa Amini, a lady who died after being arrested by the Islamic republic’s “morality police”, in Tehran, Iran September 19, 2022. WANA (West Asia Information Company) through REUTERS
By Elwely Elwelly
DUBAI (Reuters) -Iran will reject a newly-appointed unbiased U.N. investigation into the nation’s repression of anti-government protests, the international ministry mentioned on Monday, as demonstrations confirmed no signal of abating.
“Iran can have no cooperation with the political committee fashioned by the U.N. Rights Council,” ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani mentioned.
The U.N. Rights Council voted on Thursday to nominate a probe into Iran’s lethal crackdown on protests.
Volker Turk, the U.N. rights commissioner, had earlier demanded that Iran finish its “disproportionate” use of power in quashing protests that erupted after the demise in custody of 22-year outdated Kurdish girl Mahsa Amini on Sept. 16.
Activist information company HRANA mentioned 450 protesters had been killed in additional than two months of nationwide unrest as of Nov. 26, together with 63 minors. It mentioned 60 members of the safety forces had been killed, and 18,173 protesters detained.
Difficult the Islamic Republic’s legitimacy, protesters from all walks of life have burned photos of Khamenei and known as for the downfall of Iran’s Shi’ite Muslim theocracy.
The protests have significantly targeted on ladies’s rights – Amini was detained by morality police for apparel deemed inappropriate beneath Iran’s Islamic costume code – however have additionally known as for the autumn of Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The unrest has posed one of many boldest challenges to Iran’s clerical ruling elite because it got here to energy within the 1979 Islamic revolution, although authorities have crushed earlier rounds of main protests.
Iran has blamed international foes and their brokers for the unrest.
Iran has proof that Western nations have been concerned in protests which have swept the nation, Kanaani mentioned on Monday.
“We have now particular info proving that the U.S., Western nations and a few of the American allies have had a job within the protests,” he mentioned, with out giving particulars.
Iran has given no demise toll for protesters, however a deputy international minister, Ali Bagheri Kani, has mentioned that about 50 police had died and lots of been injured within the unrest – the primary official determine for deaths amongst safety forces.
He didn’t say whether or not that determine additionally included deaths amongst different safety forces such because the Revolutionary Guards.
