Iran rejects UN investigation into protests

Al Jazeera :
Iran has said it will not cooperate with a United Nations fact-finding mission on its response to ongoing anti-government demonstrations due to what it calls the investigation’s “political” nature.
Tehran will have “no form of cooperation with this political committee which has been framed as a fact-finding committee”, foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani told reporters during a news conference on Monday.
Last week, Iran announced it had formed a local fact-finding mission, comprised of representatives from the government, the judiciary, the parliament and others, to investigate “events, riots and unrest” during the past few weeks.
According to Kanani, this constituted a “responsible” act by the Iranian state and refuted any need for a UN investigation.
“[The UN investigation was] taking advantage of human rights mechanisms to exert political pressure on independent countries,” Kanani said.
The UN Human Rights Council last week voted to establish a fact-finding mission to investigate potential abuses in Iran’s handling of anti-government demonstrations that have erupted across the country.
The protests began after the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September, following her arrest by morality police for allegedly not adhering to the country’s mandatory dress code.
Of the 47-member council, 25 voted in favour of a resolution that demands Tehran cooperate with the council’s special rapporteur on Iran, including by granting access to areas inside Iranian territory, such as locations where people have been arrested.
There were 16 abstentions and six nations – Armenia, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Pakistan and Venezuela – voted against the measure.
The UN has said more than 300 people have died during the protests and nearly 14,000 arrested. Other human rights organisations have provided higher figures, but Iran has not released any official tallies, apart from saying that more than 50 security personnel have been killed.
Several people have received preliminary death sentences for participating in “riots”, according to the Iranian judiciary, while an official said the Iranian Supreme Court has begun hearing appeals for those sentenced to execution.
In the past two weeks, protests have been most intense in Iran’s Kurdish-majority northwestern provinces, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) confirming it is “strengthening” its presence there.