Iran condemns UN report on 2022 protests

2024-03-09 13:37:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Tehran has strongly condemned a United Nations report on the Islamic Republic's response to mass protests in 2022, denouncing the "Iranophobia" of Western states.

The report was built "on baseless claims" and "false and biased information, without legal basis," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said in a statement.

International experts said the crackdown on the mostly peaceful protests that began in September 2022 and "institutionalized discrimination" against women and girls led to "crimes against humanity."

The UN Human Rights Council mandated the expert investigation. In this process, the Iranian authorities refused to participate. The report was compiled in connection with the protests that rocked the Islamic Republic following the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.

Amin was arrested by the "morality police" in Tehran under allegations that he had violated the strict dress code for women in Iran.

The report by UN experts found the Iranian government responsible for the physical violence that led to Amin's death, and for the brutal suppression of the protests that followed.

"Not only did the expert committee not tell the truth, it deliberately distorted the facts," Kanani said.

The report, he said, "was prepared by the Zionist regime [reference to Israel], the United States and some Western states," who "continue to display Iranophobia and defame Iran."

These states "are angry because of the failure of their interventions during the unrest," Kanani said, referring to the protests.

Iranian authorities say the "riots" were incited "by the enemies" of the Islamic Republic, apart from the United States.

The spokesman of the Iranian Foreign Ministry said that a special committee to investigate the protests, formed by order of President Ebrahim Raisi, "recently sent a final report to the president", without giving details about the findings of this report.

UN experts said that "no less than 551" protesters were killed by security forces, who "used unnecessary and disproportionate force"./REL