Iran has flatly rejected a United Nations Human Rights Council resolution condemning what it described as the “violent crackdown on peaceful protests” by Iranian security forces, after two weeks of raging economic protests earlier this month, which also included a government-enforced total internet shutdown.

Following a closed-door session in Geneva on Friday, 25 council members – including France, Japan, and South Korea – voted in favour of the formal censure.

But there were significant voices among the seven that voted against, including China, India, and Pakistan. Fourteen others abstained.

The council demanded that Tehran halt arrests linked to the protests and take steps to “prevent extrajudicial killing, other forms of arbitrary deprivation of life, enforced disappearance, sexual and gender-based violence.”

UN human rights chief Volker Türk told the council that “the brutality in Iran continued, creating conditions for further human rights violations, instability and bloodshed.”

Tehran blasted the resolution as another display of Western hypocrisy, arguing that the sponsors of the emergency session have never genuinely cared about human rights in Iran.

Iran’s envoy Ali Bahreini pushed back at the meeting, saying as follows:

“It was ironic that states whose history was stained with genocide and war crimes now attempted to lecture Iran on social governance and human rights.”

This past week in Davos for the World Economic Forum, there was an interesting moment when US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent actually openly boasted that US sanctions had helped drive the protests, despite crippling the economy.

READ MORE: Iran Protest Deaths Rise As Trump Warns Tehran It Could “Get Hit Very Hard” By US

Source Zero Hedge