UN rights office says hundreds killed in Iran protests

By Emma Farge

GENEVA, Jan 13 (Reuters) - The U.N. human rights chief said on Tuesday that he was "horrified" by mounting violence by Iran's security forces against peaceful protesters, with the U.N. citing its own sources as saying that hundreds have been killed so far.

The Islamic Republic's clerical authorities are facing the biggest demonstrations since 2022 and on Sunday a rights group said that unrest has killed more than 500 people. An Iranian official indicated on Tuesday it was higher, at around 2,000.

"This cycle of horrific violence cannot continue. The Iranian people and their demands for fairness, equality and justice must be heard," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a statement read out by U.N. rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence.

Asked to comment on the scale of the killings, Laurence, citing the United Nations' sources in Iran, said: "The number that we're hearing is hundreds."

Turk also voiced concern that the death penalty might be used against thousands of protesters who have been arrested.

The unrest has prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to reissue threats to intervene militarily on behalf of Iran's protesters.

"There's concern that (the protests) have been instrumentalised, and they shouldn't be instrumentalised by anyone," said Laurence on a possible U.S. intervention.

(Reporting by Emma Farge, editing by Miranda Murray)