GENEVA, January 23. /TASS/. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk has called on Iranian authorities to restore access to the internet and other communications means inside the country.
"This shutdown, the longest recorded in Iran, has severely restricted access to information and communication. Iranians have been unable to speak to each other or to people outside the country, and unable to find out what is happening around them," he said at a special session of the UN Human Rights Council on the situation in Iran.
According to Turk, the authorities initially responded to the protests "with a call for dialogue, and announced the doubling of a state subsidy to mitigate rising prices." But later, the authorities "sough to delegitimize the protesters by labelling them ‘terrorists’, ‘enemies of the state’ and ‘foreign agents,’" he recalled, adding that the riots claimed the lives of "thousands of people."
Unrest in Iran began on December 29 after street protests triggered by a sharp fall in the Iranian rial exchange rate, and spread to most major cities. Authorities reported the deaths of 40 law enforcement officers. According to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, armed terrorists appeared among the demonstrators on January 8. The Iranian authorities blamed Israel and the United States for organizing the unrest. On January 23, Araghchi said that the death toll from the riots stood at 3,117, with both civilians and security officers being among the victims. US President Donald Trump warned earlier that he was seriously considering using force against Tehran.