The U.N. rights body condemned Iran on Friday for rights abuses and mandated an investigation into a recent crackdown on anti-government protests that killed thousands of people, according to Reuters.
"I call on the Iranian authorities to reconsider, to pull back, and to end their brutal repression," High Commissioner Volker Turk told an emergency session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, voicing concerns for detainees.
The council passed a motion extending a previous inquiry set up in 2022 so U.N. investigators could also document the latest unrest "for potential future legal proceedings".
Rights groups say bystanders were among those killed during the biggest crackdown since Shi'ite Muslim clerics took power in the 1979 revolution. Tehran has blamed "terrorists and rioters" backed by exiled opponents and foreign foes the U.S. and Israel.
Iran's mission decried the rights council's "politicised" resolution and rejected external interference, saying in a statement it had its own independent and robust accountability mechanisms to investigate "the root causes of recent events".
Twenty-five states including France, Mexico and South Korea voted in favour, while seven including China and India voted against and 14 abstained.
"This is the worst mass murder in the contemporary history of Iran," Payam Akhavan, a former U.N. prosecutor of Iranian-Canadian nationality, told the meeting.
He called for a "Nuremberg moment", referring to the international criminal trials of Nazi leaders following World War Two.
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