Britain: Iran's foreign ministry announced on Monday that the country would reject a newly appointed independent UN inquiry into how anti-government protests were suppressed there.

According to ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani, "Iran will not cooperate with the political committee established by the UN Rights Council." On Thursday, the UN Rights Council decided to launch an investigation into Iran's deadly crackdown on the protests.

The UN rights commissioner, Volker Turk, had earlier urged Iran to end the use of excessive force to quell protests following the September 16 death in custody of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini.

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By 26 November, activist news organization HRANA reported that 450 protesters, including 63 minors, had died in more than two months of nationwide unrest. It added that 18,173 protesters were detained and 60 members of the security forces were killed.

Protesters from all walks of life have burned images of Khamenei in an attempt to cast doubt on the Islamic republic's legitimacy and have sought the overthrow of Iran's Shia Muslim theocracy.

Amini was detained by the morality police for wearing clothes inappropriate by Iran's Islamic dress code. However, the protests have also called for the overthrow of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Despite crushing earlier waves of notable protests, the unrest has presented one of the boldest challenges to Iran's clerical ruling elite since it came to power in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

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Iran has blamed its foreign adversaries and their agents for the unrest. According to Kanani, Iran has evidence that Westerners were involved in the nationwide protests.

Without going into more details, he said, "We have specific information that proves that the US, Western countries and some US allies have had a role in the protests."

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Although Iran has not released the death toll for the protesters, a deputy foreign minister named Ali Bagheri Kani claimed that about 50 police officers were killed and hundreds were injured in the unrest. It is the first time that an official death toll has been given to security personnel. He did not specify whether deaths among other security personnel, such as the Revolutionary Guards, were also included in that number.