UN Security Council holds emergency meeting to discuss deadly protests in Iran under threat US President Donald Trump intervened militarily in the country.
Members of the influential 15-member U.N. body heard remarks from Iran’s deputy U.N. representative, who warned at Thursday’s meeting that the Iranians did not seek confrontation but would react to U.S. aggression and accused Washington of being “directly involved in manipulating unrest in Iran.”
U.S. Rep. Mike Waltz used his prepared remarks at the meeting to criticize the U.S. approach. Iranian government response protests, noting that Iran’s ongoing internet blockade makes it difficult to verify the true extent of the crackdown by local authorities.
“The people of Iran are demanding freedom like never before in the brutal history of the Islamic Republic,” Walz said, adding that Iran’s claim that the protests were a “foreign conspiracy to provide a precursor to military action” showed that the Iranian government was “fearful of its own people.”
Walz made no mention of Trump’s repeated threats to intervene militarily against Iran over the past week, after Trump appeared to tone down his escalating rhetoric over the past day.
Iran’s deputy U.N. envoy Goramhussein Darzi told the Security Council that Iran “seeks neither escalation nor confrontation.”
“However, any direct or indirect act of aggression will receive a decisive, proportionate and lawful response in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter,” Darzi said.
“This is not a threat; it is a statement of legal reality. Responsibility for all consequences will lie solely with those who initiated such illegal behavior,” he said.
U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Martha Poppy briefed the Security Council, saying “popular protests” in Iran “have rapidly evolved into nationwide unrest and caused heavy casualties” since they began nearly three weeks ago.
“The demonstrations began on December 28, 2025, when a group of shopkeepers in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar came together to protest against a sharp currency collapse and soaring inflation amid a broader economic recession and worsening living conditions,” Poppy said.
She added that human rights monitors had reported “mass arrests” in Iran, with “an estimated number of more than 18,000 detainees as of mid-January 2026”, but noted that “the United Nations cannot verify these figures”.
She called on Iran to treat detainees humanely and “stop any executions related to protest-related cases.”
Poppy added: “All deaths deserve prompt, independent and transparent investigations.”
“Those responsible for any violations must be held accountable in accordance with international norms and standards.”
iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi on Wednesday denied Tehran planned to execute anti-government protesters.
In an interview with Fox News, when asked if there were plans to execute protesters, Araghchi said there were “no plans to hang at all.”
“Hanging is out of the question,” he said.
The UN Security Council also heard from two Iranian civil society representatives, including an Iranian-American journalist and a government critic Masih Alinejad told the Security Council that “real and concrete action is now needed to bring to justice those who ordered the massacres in Iran”.
Alinejad told Darzi and the Iranian government: “You tried to kill me three times…my crime? Just responding to the voices of the innocent people you killed.”
Thursday’s meeting was imposed on the U.S. further sanctions against the Iranian leadership, including Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), and several other officials who were allegedly the “architects” of Tehran’s “cruel” response to the demonstrations.
Iran has fallen severe sanctions The recent wave of public protests has been fueled in part by an economic crisis that has worsened over the years.
Iranian-American journalist and author Masih Alinejad addressed a United Nations Security Council meeting on Thursday about the deadly Iran protests at the United Nations headquarters in New York [Sarah Yenesel/EPA]
