Iran situation ‘critical’ with more than 300 dead, including 50 children: UN chief

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Tuesday (22) that the situation in Iran was “critical”, describing a hardening of the authorities’ response to protests that resulted in more than 300 deaths, including 50 children in the past two months.

“We urge your authorities to meet people’s demands for equality, dignity and rights rather than using unnecessary or disproportionate force to suppress protests,” a spokesman for UN human rights chief Volker Turk said in an interview. to the press in Geneva.

The Islamic republic has been gripped by protests across the country since the death of 22-year-old Kurdish Mahsa Amini in morality police custody on September 16 after she was arrested for wearing clothes deemed “inappropriate”.

Crisis

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said it remains deeply concerned about reports of children being killed, injured and detained in Iran in a statement on Friday, adding that the reported deaths of children in anti-government protests ” must stop”.

“About 50 children have lost their lives in public unrest in Iran,” Unicef ​​said in the statement.

This comes as demonstrations in Iran have continued for more than two months and amid growing calls from protesters and online activists to Unicef, Amnesty International and other human rights organizations to take action on human rights violations and crimes against children in Iran.

Many say to CNN who feel their voices have not been heard. “They just say, hey Islamic republic, what you are doing is bad,” a protester in Iran told the CNN “Yes, everyone knows it’s bad. Three-year-olds know this is bad, but we need real action. Do something. I don’t know. I believe they know better than we do what they can do.

“In Iran, UNICEF remains deeply concerned about reports of children being killed, injured and detained,” the statement said, citing the death of a boy named Kian Pirfalak, one of seven people killed during Wednesday’s protests. in the city of Izeh, in the southwest of the country. “This is frightening and must stop,” the organization added.

Unicef ​​reported Pirfalak’s age as 10 years old. Iranian state media reported he was nine years old.

The child was traveling in a car on Wednesday with her family when she was shot dead and her father wounded by gunfire, her mother told state media in an interview with Tasnim on Friday.

According to Iran’s state news agency ISNA, protesters set fire to a seminary around the same time people were shot and killed in Izeh, in what state media is calling a “terrorist attack”.

Activists are accusing the Iranian regime of killing Kian and others in Izeh.

The Islamic republic is facing one of the largest and unprecedented demonstrations of dissent in recent history following the death of Mahsa Amini.

At least 378 people have been killed since the demonstrations began, according to an Iranian human rights group, when the country’s supreme leader issued a warning that the protest movement was “doomed to fail”.

The organization Iran Human Rights published the estimated death toll on Saturday, adding that it included 47 children killed by security forces.

THE CNN cannot independently verify arrest numbers, death tolls and many of the reports of those killed due to the Iranian government’s suppression of independent media and internet shutdowns that diminish transparency in on-site reporting. The media also cannot directly access the government on their own in these cases, unless there are reports in the state media, the mouthpiece of the government.

(Edited by Miranda Murray)