A wave of protests have engulfed Iran since last month following the funeral of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, on September 17th. She died while in the custody of Iran’s morality police for allegedly violating the country’s strict Islamic dress code.
On October 3rd, the UK's Foreign Secretary instructed the FCDO to summon Mehdi Hosseini Matin, Iran’s most senior diplomat in the UK, over the Iranian authorities’ violent crackdown on the protests.
Vijay Rangarajan, the FCDO's Director General for the Middle East, held the meeting with Matin and is said to reiterated the UK’s call for a full and transparent investigation into death of Mahsa Amini, and urged the Iranian authorities to respect the right to peaceful assembly, exercise restraint and release unfairly detained protesters, and outlined the UK’s concern at reports of live ammunition being used at Sharif University.
James Cleverly made the following comments:
"The violence levelled at protestors in Iran by the security forces is truly shocking. Today we have made our view clear to the Iranian authorities – instead of blaming external actors for the unrest, they should take responsibility for their actions and listen to the concerns of their people. We will continue to work with our partners to hold the Iranian authorities to account for their flagrant human rights violations."