Iran Rejects UN Investigation into Repression of Protests

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani (AFP)
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani (AFP)
TT

Iran Rejects UN Investigation into Repression of Protests

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani (AFP)
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani (AFP)

Iran rejected cooperation with the newly-appointed independent UN committee to investigate the country's repression and crackdown on anti-government protests.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said that Iran would not cooperate with the political committee set up by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC)

He stressed that the hasty use of human rights mechanisms and adopting "political and instrumental" approaches toward such issues were "rejected" and failed to contribute to the human rights concept.

Kanaani indicated that Tehran "strongly protested against the interventionist and baseless statements of the German authorities."

The 47 member states of the UNHRC decided during an urgent meeting held at the initiative of Germany and Iceland to appoint a team of investigators to shed light on human rights violations during the protests crackdown in Iran.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk demanded Iran end its "excessive" use of force to quell the protests that erupted after the death of a young Iranian-Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, while in the custody of the morality police.

In response to the UN move, Iran summoned the German ambassador to protest "interventionist" remarks by German officials and Berlin's key role in holding a UNHRC special session on Iran.

The official IRNA news agency reported that the German ambassador was summoned to the Foreign Ministry after Berlin's initiative to hold the special meeting.

Kanaani said that Iran has evidence of the involvement of Western countries in the protests sweeping the nation.

He added: "We have specific information proving that the US, Western countries, and some US allies have had a role in the protests."

Iran did not announce an official death toll of the protesters.

However, Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani said that about 50 policemen were killed in the protests since September, in the first official death toll, without disclosing whether this number includes fatalities among the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) or not.

Mahabad MP Jalal Mahmoudzadeh said earlier that 105 people were killed during the crackdown launched by the authorities to quell the protests.



Bangladesh Says Student Leaders Held for Their Own Safety

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
TT

Bangladesh Says Student Leaders Held for Their Own Safety

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladesh said three student leaders had been taken into custody for their own safety after the government blamed their protests against civil service job quotas for days of deadly nationwide unrest.

Students Against Discrimination head Nahid Islam and two other senior members of the protest group were Friday forcibly discharged from hospital and taken away by a group of plainclothes detectives.

The street rallies organized by the trio precipitated a police crackdown and days of running clashes between officers and protesters that killed at least 201 people, according to an AFP tally of hospital and police data.

Islam earlier this week told AFP he was being treated at the hospital in the capital Dhaka for injuries sustained during an earlier round of police detention.

Police had initially denied that Islam and his two colleagues were taken into custody before home minister Asaduzzaman Khan confirmed it to reporters late on Friday.

"They themselves were feeling insecure. They think that some people were threatening them," he said.

"That's why we think for their own security they needed to be interrogated to find out who was threatening them. After the interrogation, we will take the next course of action."

Khan did not confirm whether the trio had been formally arrested.

Days of mayhem last week saw the torching of government buildings and police posts in Dhaka, and fierce street fights between protesters and riot police elsewhere in the country.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government deployed troops, instituted a nationwide internet blackout and imposed a curfew to restore order.

- 'Carried out raids' -

The unrest began when police and pro-government student groups attacked street rallies organized by Students Against Discrimination that had remained largely peaceful before last week.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location to be tortured before he was released the next morning.

His colleague Asif Mahmud, also taken into custody at the hospital on Friday, told AFP earlier that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Police have arrested at least 4,500 people since the unrest began.

"We've carried out raids in the capital and we will continue the raids until the perpetrators are arrested," Dhaka Metropolitan Police joint commissioner Biplob Kumar Sarker told AFP.

"We're not arresting general students, only those who vandalized government properties and set them on fire."