GENEVA: A fact-finding mission mandated by the United Nations said on Monday the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of Iran`s morality police was unlawful and caused by violence and that Iranian women still suffer systematic discrimination.

The death of 22-year-old Amini, a Kurdish Iranian woman, in September 2022 while in custody for allegedly flouting Iran`s Islamic dress code unleashed months of protests and the biggest challenge to the Islamic Republic`s clerical leaders in decades.

`Our investigation established that her death was unlawful and caused by physical violence in the custody of state authorities,` Sara Hossain, chairperson of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The fact-finding mission found the protests that followed were marked by extra-judicial executions, arbitrary arrests, torture and ill-treatment, as well as rape and sexual violence.

`These acts were conducted in the context of a widespread and systematic attack against women and girls, and other persons expressing support for human rights,` Hossain said.

`Some of these serious violations ofhuman rights thus rose to the level of crimes against humanity.

In response, Kazem Gharib Abadi, secretary general of Iran`s High Council for Human Rights, accused the fact-finding mission of a `glaring lack of independence and impartiality`.

In separate comments to the Human Rights Council, Javaid Rehman, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran, said jailed human rights defender Narges Mohammadi `suffers from severe health issues, including serious heart and lung conditions, placing her health at great risk`.

`She was denied medical access because she did not have the mandatory hijab,` Hossain said about Mohammadi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize lastyear.

Hossain said that since the protests began in 2022, women and girls in Iran were confronted daily by discrimination `affecting virtually all aspects of their private and public lives`.

She said it was `hard to fathom` that women`s access to schools, universities, hospitals and courts as well as employment opportunities `should be subjected to a wholly arbitrary requirement of wearing the mandatory hijab`.-Reuters