U.N. rights chief says full-fledged crisis underway in Iran

United Nations

The U.N. human rights chief on Thursday made a strong appeal to Iranian authorities to stop their "unnecessary and disproportionate" use of force against protesters in Iran in a speech to the Human Rights Council on the ongoing crisis.

"We are now in a full-fledged human rights crisis," High Commissioner of Human Rights Volker Turk said in his first address to the 47-member council since starting last month.

"No society can be calcified or fossilised as it may stand at a single point in time. To attempt to do so, against the will of its people, is futile," he added.