The UN's Human Rights Council was urged on Thursday to appoint new investigators for Iran to document what it heard was a worsening wave of violence against protesters, APA reports citing The National News.
An urgent session of the council in Geneva was told that up to 70 people including five children had been killed in Iran in the past week.
UN high commissioner for human rights Volker Turk said Iran was in a "full-fledged human rights crisis" after two months of anti-regime protests.
He said more than 14,000 people had been arrested and that a "conservative estimate" was that 300 had died including 40 children.
"It pains me to see what is happening in the country — the images of children killed, of women beaten in the streets, of people sentenced to death," he said.
A draft resolution by the council would set up a new investigative mission to collect evidence of abuses and ensure it could be used in court.
It would have a mandate separate from the UN's special rapporteur on Iran, Javid Rehman, who has been denied access to the country.
Germany, which along with Iceland called for the special session, said it was fighting hard for a majority on the 47-member council.
The resolution would also call on Iran to end repression and violence against its own people.
"The Iranian demonstrators have no seat on the Human Rights Council in Geneva and no voice of their own in the United Nations," said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.
"Today the UN Human Rights Council can raise its voice for indivisible human rights in Iran."
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