Iranian authorities says it will reject the newly appointed independent UN investigation into the country’s crackdown on anti-government Hijab protests, the Iranian foreign ministry said on Monday, as demonstrations show no sign of abating.
“Iran will not cooperate with the political committee created by the UN Rights Council,” ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said.
The UN Rights Council voted Thursday to appoint an inquiry into Iran’s deadly crackdown on Hijab protests.
Volker Turk, the UN rights commissioner, had earlier demanded that Iran end its “disproportionate” use of force in quelling protests that erupted after the death of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in custody on 16 March.
Activist news agency HRANA reported that 450 protesters, including 63 minors, had been killed as of November 26 during more than two months of nationwide unrest.
It further stated that 60 members of the security forces were killed and 18,173 protesters were detained.
Demonstrators from all walks of life have questioned the Islamic Republic’s legitimacy and burned effigies of Khamenei and called for the fall of Iran’s Shiite Muslim theocracy.
The protests focused mainly on women’s rights – Amini was detained by morality police for wearing clothing deemed inappropriate under Iran’s Islamic dress code – but also called for the downfall of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The unrest represents one of the boldest challenges to Iran’s clerical ruling elite since it came to power in an Islamic revolution in 1979, although authorities have suppressed previous rounds of large-scale protests.
Iran blamed foreign enemies and their agents for the unrest.
Iran has evidence that Western states have joined the protests that have hit the country, Kanaani said on Monday.
“We have concrete information proving that the US, Western countries and some US allies played a role in the protests,” he said, without giving details.
Iran did not give any death toll for the protesters, but Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani said about 50 policemen had died and hundreds were injured in the riots – the first official death toll among security forces.
He did not say whether the figure also included deaths by other security forces, such as the Revolutionary Guards.