Agencies
Geneva
The UN human rights chief Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday that he was “horrified” by mounting violence by Iran’s security forces against peaceful protesters, with the UN citing its own sources as saying that hundreds have been killed so far.
The Islamic Republic’s clerical authorities are facing the biggest demonstrations since 2022 and on Sunday a rights group said that unrest has killed more than 500 people. An Iranian official indicated on Tuesday it was higher, at around 2,000.
“This cycle of horrific violence cannot continue. The Iranian people and their demands for fairness, equality and justice must be heard,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a statement read out by UN rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence.
Asked to comment on the scale of the killings, Laurence, citing the United Nations’ sources in Iran, said: “The number that we’re hearing is hundreds.”
Turk also voiced concern that the death penalty might be used against thousands of protesters who have been arrested.
The unrest has prompted US President Donald Trump to reissue threats to intervene militarily on behalf of Iran’s
protesters.
“There’s concern that (the protests) have been instrumentalised, and they shouldn’t be instrumentalised by anyone,” said Laurence on a possible U.S. intervention.
On the one hand Foreign Minister Araghchi told Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview that Iran is to keep the lines of communication open with the US, and the tendency and the willingness towards continuing the talks is still there in Tehran. But, we can rest assured that, considering the very recent statements, there’s going to be another tone to be heard.
Araghchi said, “If Washington wants to test the military option it has tested before, we are ready for it.”
So far, we do not have any official reactions to the very recent statement by the US President, Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, previously, we heard messages of warning from the Iranian side. But still speaking of the very rhetoric we were witnessing over the past few days, it was like a twofold statement that was coming out from Iranian officials, including Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The speaker of the Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, came out to say that in case the US decides to attack Iran, there are going to be tough repercussions down the road for the Americans, including the US bases in the region.
