Tehran [Iran], January 25: The Iranian state has rejected a resolution by the United Nations' Human Rights Council that strongly condemned the "violent crackdown on peaceful protests" by security forces that left thousands dead.
After a detailed meeting and discussions in Geneva on Friday, 25 members of the council, including France, Japan and South Korea, voted in favour of the censure resolution. Seven votes against, including from China, India and Pakistan, as well as 14 abstentions, among others from Qatar and South Africa, failed to stop the resolution.
The human rights council called on Iran to stop the arrests of people in connection with the protests, and to take steps to "prevent extrajudicial killing, other forms of arbitrary deprivation of life, enforced disappearance, sexual and gender-based violence" and other actions violating its human rights obligations.
Iran said that the Western-led sponsors of the emergency meeting on Friday had never genuinely cared for human rights in Iran, or else they would not have imposed sanctions that have devastated the Iranian population over the past decade. Ali Bahreini, Iran's envoy in the meeting, reiterated the state's claim that 3,117 people were killed during the unrest, 2,427 of whom were killed by "terrorists" armed and funded by the United States, Israel and their allies.
"It was ironic that states whose history was stained with genocide and war crimes now attempted to lecture Iran on social governance and human rights," he said.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) says it has confirmed at least 5,137 deaths during the protests, and is investigating 12,904 others. UN special rapporteur on Iran, Mai Sato, has said the death toll could reach 20,000 or more as reports from doctors from inside Iran emerge.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene in Iran if it kills protesters. Washington is moving the USS Abraham Lincoln supercarrier, along with its strike group of supporting vessels, towards the Middle East in a move that has raised fears of more US strikes on Iran in the aftermath of the 12-day war with Israel in June.
Source: Qatar Tribune
