UN News Today 23 January 2026 |

Iran: UN rights chief warns over execution uncertainty for protesters

Disturbing details continued to emerge on Friday about Iran’s State-led crackdown against mass protests, while UN rights chief Volker Türk expressed deep concern that demonstrators could be executed.

Addressing the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Mr. Türk said that although the “killing on the streets of Iran may have subsided…the brutality continues”. 

He said that violent repression did not solve any of Iran’s problems but instead created conditions for further “violations, instability and bloodshed”:

“We have indications that the security forces made mass arrests in several cities, even pursuing injured people into hospitals, and detaining lawyers, human rights defenders, activists, and ordinary civilians. The Tehran Prosecutor’s Office has reportedly opened criminal cases against athletes, actors, people involved in the movie industry, and the owners of cafes, on charges of supporting the protests.”

Protests erupted across Iran on 28 December in response to the collapse of the national currency, soaring inflation and worsening living conditions.

Also speaking at the Council, former international prosecutor Payam Akhavan described how one protester pretended to be dead in a body-bag for three days until his parents found him. 

The civil society representative said that parents looking for their relatives usually started at hospitals, where “many of the wounded (protesters) have been abducted and killed”. Others have been forced to sign confessions which blame imaginary “terrorists” for the murder of their children, Mr. Akhavan maintained.

He cited a medical report circulating among Iranian doctors that 16,500 people had been killed during the demonstrations. “The number increases by the day, because the killings haven’t stopped,” he said.

Gaza: Immediate aid needed, over reconstruction

To Gaza, where aid agencies insisted on Friday that what Gazans need most is immediate relief from the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe there, never mind talk about reconstruction.

Their urgent appeal for aid follows the launch of President Trump’s Board of Peace. 

It has yet to be made clear exactly how the UN will support the initiative, although the Security Council highlighted the importance of working with “cooperating organizations” including the United Nations, on humanitarian aid delivery.

With more on needs in Gaza, here’s Juliette Touma from the UN agency, UNOPS:

“While there are all these agreements on the shape and the form of reconstruction, the people of Gaza cannot wait. They need supplies at the same time; it’s not just the services. This is why it’s absolutely critical to unlock the congestion, if you wish, at crossing points and to reopen critical lifelines like the Jordan corridor.”

UNRWA fears closure of vital educational centre for Palestinians

Staying in the Middle East, the UN agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, said it fears a key vocational training centre it supports could close “within days”, following the demolition of its own headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem on Tuesday.

The Kalandia Training Centre faces having its water and power cut off after the Israeli parliament recently passed laws requiring utility providers to withhold or disconnect UNRWA facilities. 

The move “would end (UNRWA’s) over 70 years of teaching generations of Palestine refugees”, the agency said.

Here’s agency spokesperson Jonathan Fowler:

“This is a unique training centre. These students generally come from non-academic backgrounds, lower-income families, so this is a social justice issue. If the centre were to be forcibly closed – and we do fear that this could happen within days – there is no educational alternative for these students.”

In an update on the occupied West Bank, UNRWA also warned that the Israeli authorities are progressively demolishing three refugee camps: Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarem. This follows the forced displacement of 33,000 Palestinians who have lost their livelihoods and shelter, meaning that they now live in poverty, the agency said.

Daniel Johnson, UN News