عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
World

Iran Rejects UN Investigation into Repression of Protests

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

Most Viewed

 
 
World

Trump's Words on Greenland and Borders Ring Alarms in Europe, But Officials Have a Guarded Response

FILE PHOTO: Greenland's flag flies in Igaliku settlement, Greenland, July 5, 2024. Ritzau Scanpix/Ida Marie Odgaard via REUTERS
FILE PHOTO: Greenland's flag flies in Igaliku settlement, Greenland, July 5, 2024. Ritzau Scanpix/Ida Marie Odgaard via REUTERS
TT
TT

Trump's Words on Greenland and Borders Ring Alarms in Europe, But Officials Have a Guarded Response

FILE PHOTO: Greenland's flag flies in Igaliku settlement, Greenland, July 5, 2024. Ritzau Scanpix/Ida Marie Odgaard via REUTERS
FILE PHOTO: Greenland's flag flies in Igaliku settlement, Greenland, July 5, 2024. Ritzau Scanpix/Ida Marie Odgaard via REUTERS

President-elect Donald Trump has tossed expansionist rhetoric at US allies and potential adversaries with arguments that the frontiers of American power need to be extended into Canada and the Danish territory of Greenland, and southward to include the Panama Canal.Trump's suggestions that international borders can be redrawn — by force if necessary — are particularly inflammatory in Europe. His words run contrary to the argument European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy are trying to impress on Russian President Vladimir Putin.But many European leaders — who've learned to expect the unexpected from Trump and have seen that actions don't always follow his words — have been guarded in their response, with some taking a nothing-to-see-here view rather than vigorously defend European Union member Denmark.Analysts, though, say that even words can damage US-European relations ahead of Trump's second presidency.A diplomatic response in Europe Several officials in Europe — where governments depend on US trade, energy, investment, technology, and defense cooperation for security — emphasized their belief that Trump has no intention of marching troops into Greenland.“I think we can exclude that the United States in the coming years will try to use force to annex territory that interests it,” Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said.German Chancellor Olaf Scholz pushed back — but carefully, saying “borders must not be moved by force" and not mentioning Trump by name.This week, as Ukrainian President Zelenskyy pressed Trump’s incoming administration to continue supporting Ukraine, he said: “No matter what’s going on in the world, everyone wants to feel sure that their country will not just be erased off the map.” Since Putin marched troops across Ukrainian borders in 2022, Zelenskyy and allies have been fighting — at great cost — to defend the principle that has underpinned the international order since World War II: that powerful nations can’t simply gobble up others.The British and French foreign ministers have said they can't foresee a US invasion of Greenland. Still, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot portrayed Trump’s remarks as a wake-up call."Do we think we’re entering into a period that sees the return of the law of the strongest?" the French minister said. “‘Yes."On Friday, the prime minister of Greenland — a semiautonomous Arctic territory that isn’t part of the EU but whose 56,000 residents are EU citizens, as part of Denmark — said its people don’t want to be Americans but that he’s open to greater cooperation with the US.“Cooperation is about dialogue," leader Múte B. Egede said.Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called the US "our closest ally” and said: “We have to stand together.”Analysts find Trump's words troubling European security analysts agreed there’s no real likelihood of Trump using the military against NATO ally Denmark, but nevertheless expressed profound disquiet.Analysts warned of turbulence ahead for trans-Atlantic ties, international norms and the NATO military alliance — not least because of the growing row with member Canada over Trump's repeated suggestions that it become a US state.“There is a possibility, of course, that this is just ... a new sheriff in town," said Flemming Splidsboel Hansen, who specializes in foreign policy, Russia and Greenland at the Danish Institute for International Studies. "I take some comfort from the fact that he is now insisting that Canada should be included in the US, which suggests that it is just sort of political bravado.“But damage has already been done. And I really cannot remember a previous incident like this where an important ally — in this case the most important ally — would threaten Denmark or another NATO member state.”Hansen said he fears NATO may be falling apart even before Trump's inauguration.“I worry about our understanding of a collective West," he said. "What does this even mean now? What may this mean just, say, one year from now, two years from now, or at least by the end of this second Trump presidency? What will be left?”Security concerns as possible motivation Some diplomats and analysts see a common thread in Trump's eyeing of Canada, the Panama Canal and Greenland: securing resources and waterways to strengthen the US against potential adversaries.Paris-based analyst Alix Frangeul-Alves said Trump's language is “all part of his ‘Make America Great Again’ mode.”In Greenland's soils, she noted, are rare earths critical for advanced and green technologies. China dominates global supplies of the valuable minerals, which the US, Europe and other nations view as a security risk.“Any policy made in Washington is made through the lens of the competition with China,” said Frangeul-Alves, who focuses on US politics for the German Marshall Fund.Some observers said Trump's suggested methods are fraught with peril.Security analyst Alexander Khara said Trump’s claim that “we need Greenland for national security purposes” reminded him of Putin's comments on Crimea when Russia seized the strategic Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.Suggesting that borders might be flexible is “a completely dangerous precedent,” said Khara, director of the Centre for Defense Strategies in Kyiv.“We’re in a time of transition from the old system based on norms and principles,” he said, and “heading to more conflicts, more chaos and more uncertainty.”