The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) will hold an urgent special session this week on "the deteriorating human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran," a spokesman said Tuesday.

It follows a request from the U.K., Germany, Iceland, Moldova and North Macedonia and will take place on Friday, council spokesman Pascal Sim told reporters in Geneva.

In a letter addressed to the council's president and seen by Agence France-Presse (AFP), the five countries highlighted "credible reports of alarming violence, crackdowns on protesters and violations of international human rights law across the country."

The request had received backing from more than the one-third of the council's 47 members needed for a special session to go ahead.

So far, 21 members are supporting the request, including Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, France, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain and Switzerland.

The request is also supported by 30 observer countries, including Argentina, Australia, Canada, Norway, Poland, Sweden and Ukraine.

Iran is reeling from some of the biggest anti-government protests in its history.

Iranian officials have not given an exact death toll. The UNHRC already has Iran under scrutiny.

The Friday meeting will be the 39th special session of the UNHRC since it was founded in 2006.

The last was in November on el-Fasher in Sudan, with the previous one in February last year on the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The UNHRC holds three regular sessions a year, over a minimum of 10 weeks in total.

The next regular session is scheduled to be held from Feb. 23 to April 2.