TEHRAN — Iran’s government spokesperson sharply rejected a United Nations Human Rights Council resolution on the country’s recent unrest, calling the measure a ‘politically motivated’ effort to exert pressure on the Islamic Republic while ignoring Western sanctions and Western-backed regional wars that constitute grave rights abuses.

The special session of the Human Rights Council, held on Friday in Geneva, ended with the passage of a resolution targeting Iran’s handling of the January 8–9 riots, as well as earlier protests that began in late December over economic conditions. The text, adopted with 25 votes in favor, 7 against and 14 abstentions, calls for an “independent investigation” and “accountability” for Iranian officials, and extends the mandates of both the special rapporteur on Iran and a fact-finding mission.

Initial reactions by Iranian officials dismissed the move as legally baseless and politically choreographed, arguing that the Council’s focus on Iran — and its silence on sanctions and wars in the region — underscores “a systematic double standard in the application of international human rights norms.”

Those remarks were repeated in Tehran on Sunday. The government’s spokesperson, Fatemeh Mohajerani, condemned the “hurried and unbalanced” decision by the Council.

“This resolution has been adopted with a political and non-balanced approach,” Mohajerani said, according to the government’s official information service. “We will pursue legal and diplomatic avenues to respond to the recent resolution and will defend Iran’s rights within the framework of international law.”

She added that the government’s policy rested on “three simultaneous and inseparable principles: safeguarding national interests, preserving the country’s security and respecting the rights of the people,” and warned that the Islamic Republic “will not allow the country’s internal issues to become a tool for political pressure and foreign interference.”

Iranian diplomats in Geneva had gone further, arguing that the resolution had been “designed against Iran rather than about universal human rights,” pointing to a pattern of selective scrutiny that elevates Western political interests over the welfare of ordinary people in other parts of the world. 

“Bodies like the Human Rights Council, if they truly cared about human beings, would address all dimensions of human suffering, not focus almost exclusively on Iran,” the Iranian mission’s statement said. “Human rights become an issue for countries like ours, but when it comes to the devastating impact of unjust Western sanctions, which have imposed enormous economic pressure on our people, there is no serious voice.”

The special session and resolution come in the wake of the January 8–9 riots, which resembled not spontaneous civil unrest, but a security operation intended to destabilize the country and open the door to foreign intervention. The riots were unprecedented in their scale and intensity, involving armed cells that attacked security forces and civilians across several cities. U.S. President Donald Trump encouraged the rioters multiple times before the unrest fizzled, promising that he would attack Iran if they got arrested. 

The unrest followed weeks of largely peaceful demonstrations that began in December, when shopkeepers and small business owners demanded economic relief after years of U.S.-led sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy. Those sanctions, which target entire sectors from banking to oil exports, have been described by U.N. experts themselves as having severe humanitarian consequences, a point the Human Rights Council systematically ignores.

The nature of the protests changed dramatically when the exiled son of the deposed Shah called on his “supporters” from abroad to take to the streets and “topple the Islamic Republic,” using Western-based Persian-language satellite channels and social media as his platform. Senior Israeli and American figures also took to social media during the unrest, openly speaking of “Mossad agents on the ground” assisting efforts to bring down the government.

More than 3,100 people were killed in the ensuing chaos, the majority of them security personnel and ordinary civilians — a toll that underscores the armed and organized nature of the violence. Investigations have shown that the United States and Israel supplied weapons to the groups involved. While the terrorists are now either dead, in custody or in hiding, families of the victims say Washington and Tel Aviv must ultimately be held accountable.