Iran official says 50 police killed in protests

Around 50 police have been killed in the protests shaking Iran since September, the deputy foreign minister said on Thursday, giving a first official death toll amid an intensified crackdown on Kurdish areas in recent days.Iranian security forces have clashed with protesters across the country, with the U.N. rights commission saying more than 300 demonstrators have been killed since the death in custody of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini on Sept. 16. U.N. rights chief Volker Turk said on Thursday Iran faced a “full fledged human rights crisis” with 14,000 people arrested so far, including children. He was speaking ahead of a special session in Geneva with a possible vote on setting up a fact-finding mission.”Around 50 police officers were killed during the protests and hundreds were injured,” said Iran’s deputy foreign minister Ali Bagheri Kani, who is also Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, in an interview on Indian television. He gave no figure for the number of protesters killed but said the Interior Ministry had formed a panel to investigate the deaths. Iranian state media reported last month that 46 security forces had been killed but without citing officials.The protests triggered by Amini’s death after she was detained by morality police for attire deemed inappropriate under Iran’s strict Islamic dress code quickly spread all over Iran. Anger has focused on women’s rights but protesters have also called for the fall of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran’s clerical rulers have recently hardened the crackdown in Kurdish areas, with the U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights spokesperson Jeremy Laurence saying on Tuesday there were reports of more than 40 killed there over the past week.