Iran accuses UN rapporteur of ‘whitewashing’ U.S.-Israeli attacks after report links war to intensified domestic repression

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei accused the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Iran of using her mandate to “whitewash” U.S. and Israeli military actions and shift responsibility for their consequences onto Tehran.

In a post on X, Baqaei described Mai Sato’s mandate as “politically motivated” and said it had been imposed on the U.N. Human Rights Council at Britain’s initiative.

“Exploiting the so-called Special Rapporteurship on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran to blame Iran for the crimes committed by the U.S. and Israel amounts to nothing less than a deliberate attempt to whitewash aggression, atrocities, and unilateral coercive measures,” he wrote.

Baqaei called the approach “deeply misleading and profoundly disingenuous.”

His criticism followed Sato’s presentation to the U.N. General Assembly’s Third Committee on Wednesday. Her report said U.S. and Israeli military strikes had compounded the suffering of Iranian civilians while Iranian authorities had used the war to intensify repression, including arrests, trials and executions linked to protests.

Sato said thousands of Iranian families had suffered from military strikes or from lethal force and executions by domestic authorities, arguing that protection from external attack and protection from human-rights violations at home were not alternatives.

She also called on the United States and Israel to cease hostilities, investigate their strikes and publish their findings, while urging Tehran to halt executions, release people detained for exercising their rights and investigate deaths caused by Iranian security forces.