The U.N. high commissioner for human rights said Tuesday that the situation in Iran is “critical,” describing the authorities’ toughening response to protests that have led to more than 300 deaths in the past two months.
“The rising number of deaths in protests in Iran, including those of two children over the weekend, and the tightening response of security forces, underscore the critical situation in the country,” a spokesman for U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk told a news conference in Geneva.
The Islamic Republic has been mired in nationwide protests since the death on September 16 of 22-year-old Kurdish Mahsa Amini in the custody of morality police, after she was arrested for wearing clothes deemed “inappropriate”.
Tehran has blamed foreign enemies and their agents for orchestrating the protests, which have turned into a popular revolt by Iranians from all layers of society, posing one of the boldest challenges to clerical rulers since the 1979 revolution.
Iran’s World Cup team refused to sing the national anthem before playing its first match on Monday, in a sign of support for the protests.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said more than 300 people have died to date, including more than 40 children. These deaths occurred nationwide and were recorded in 25 of the 31 provinces.
At the same briefing, OHCHR spokesman Jeremy Lawrence also expressed concern about the situation in mainly Kurdish cities, where security forces are known to have killed more than 40 people in the past week.
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