UN Human Rights Council
UN Human Rights CouncilReuters

Iran's Foreign Ministry condemned a United Nations Human Rights Council decision to probe Iran’s response to unrest following the death of Mahsa Amini, AFP reported.

A resolution put forward by Germany and Iceland was backed by 25 nations on Thursday, including the United States and many European, Latin American, Asian and African nations.

Six countries opposed the move -- China, Pakistan, Cuba, Eritrea, Venezuela and Armenia – and 16 abstained.

Iran "totally rejects" the resolution that was adopted to establish a high-level fact-finding mission, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement late Thursday.

The statement said Iran had already formed a national commission of inquiry involving legal experts and "independent representatives".

"The formation of any new mechanism to examine the incidents over the past two months in Iran is useless and represents a violation of the country's national sovereignty", it said, according to AFP.

Iran "does not recognize the mission", the ministry added.

"This resolution was made under pressure from certain political lobbies that depend on false information spread by anti-Iranian media," the foreign ministry charged.

It decried a "strategic error by Germany and certain Western countries" and said "this blindness will be detrimental to their interests".

The resolution follows two months of protests in Iran sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini on September 16, after she was arrested for an alleged breach of the country's strict dress rules for women based on Islamic sharia law.

As of Thursday, at least 426 people have been killed in the crackdown since Amini's death.

UN rights experts say thousands of peaceful protesters have also been arrested, including many women, children and journalists, and at least six people have so far been handed death sentences over the demonstrations.

(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)