Rights groups urge UN probe of Iran’s ‘harrowing’ crackdown on protests

Over 40 organizations call on Human Rights Council to ‘establish an independent, investigative reporting and accountability mechanism’ into Tehran’s deadly suppression of unrest

By AFP 17 October 2022, 6:01 pm

Edit

Iranian women shout slogans to protest over the death of Mahsa Amini during a demonstration outside the Iranian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, October 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)

NICOSIA, Cyprus — More than 40 human rights groups Monday condemned Iran’s lethal crackdown on protests sparked by Masha Amini’s death and called on the United Nations Human Rights Council to urgently investigate.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other groups voiced their “deep concern” about Iran’s “mobilization of their well-honed machinery of repression to ruthlessly crack down” on the nationwide protests.

Iran has been rocked by a wave of protests since 22-year-old Amini’s death on September 16, days after she was arrested by the morality police in Tehran for allegedly violating Iran’s strict dress code for women.

The coalition said evidence gathered showed “a harrowing pattern of Iranian security forces deliberately and unlawfully firing live ammunition and metal pellets, including birdshot, at protesters and bystanders including children.”

They said the state crackdown had seen “growing numbers of protesters and bystanders killed,” including at least 23 identified children, in four weeks of unrest.

They called on the UN Human Rights Council to “act as a matter of urgency by holding a special session and… establish an independent, investigative reporting and accountability mechanism.”

This process should “address the most serious crimes under international law and other gross human rights violations” in the latest of successive waves of protest crackdowns over recent years.

“Without concerted collective action by the international community… countless more men, women and children risk being killed, maimed, tortured, sexually assaulted and thrown behind bars, and evidence of grave crimes risks disappearing.”

A general view of the room hosting a special session of the UN Human Rights Council on Ukraine, in Geneva, on May 12, 2022. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP)

The groups also condemned Iran’s “discriminatory and abusive compulsory veiling laws, which perpetuate violence against women and girls in Iran and strip them of their right to dignity and bodily autonomy.”

The alliance of non-government groups also included Iran Human Rights, the Center for Human Rights in Iran, Hengaw Organisation for Human Rights and the Balochistan Human Rights Group.

In Geneva, a spokesperson of the Human Rights Council, Rolando Gomez, said it had not received “any specific request for a special session of the HRC on Iran.”

“For an HRC special session to be held, a formal request must be submitted by states with at least one-third of the 47 members support the call.”