Thu 29 September 2022:
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reiterated calls for an impartial investigation over the death of Mahsa Amini, the Iranian woman killed while in custody of police.
The Secretary General in a tweet demanded “a prompt, impartial and effective investigation by an independent competent authority,” as protests raged in Iran for nearly two weeks after Mahsa Amini died in hospital on September 16. Guterres added, “Human rights, including freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association should be respected.”
It is not clear how many protesters have been killed Iran by security forces, but according to preliminary estimates the number is approaching at least one hundred.
The government has shut down the internet and deployed thousands of armed security forces in the streets of the Capital Tehran on Wednesday.
In a bilateral meeting in New York last week, Guterres had urged Iran’s hard-liner president Ebrahim Raisi that human rights, including freedom of expression and assembly were important, his spokesman Stephane Dujarric told the media.
“We are increasingly concerned about reports of rising fatalities, including women and children, related to the protests,” Dujarric said in a statement.
The spokesman said last week that Guterres “calls on the security forces to refrain from using unnecessary or disproportionate force and appeals to all to exercise utmost restraint to avoid further escalation”. He had also called for an impartial and effective investigation of Mahsa Amini’s death.
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