AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PRESS RELEASE
6 November 2019
World must condemn appalling deterioration
of human rights in Iran
The international community must publicly condemn
the deterioration in Iran’s human rights record during
the country’s upcoming review session at the UN Human
Rights Council in Geneva on 8 November, Amnesty
International said today.
The organization urges states taking part in Iran’s
Universal Periodic Review (UPR) to denounce the
widespread human rights violations and make concrete
recommendations for the Iranian authorities to address them.
“From horrific execution rates, to the relentless persecution
of human rights defenders, rampant discrimination against
women and minorities, and ongoing crimes against
humanity, the catalogue of appalling violations recorded in
Iran reveals a sharp deterioration in its human rights record,”
said Philip Luther, Research and Advocacy Director for the
Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.
“Iran’s upcoming UN human rights review session offers
a crucial opportunity for the international community to
send a strong and clear message to the Iranian authorities
that its shocking disregard for human rights will not be
tolerated.
“It is also an opportunity for states to place increased
attention on the ongoing enforced disappearance of
thousands of political dissidents over the past three
decades, a crime against humanity which has been
overlooked for far too long by the international community.”
Since Iran’s human rights record was last reviewed
in 2014, the level of repression by the authorities
has risen significantly.
Thousands of people have been rounded up for
expressing their views or taking part in peaceful
demonstrations and a vindictive crackdown has
been launched against human rights defenders,
including activists campaigning against forced veiling
laws, in order to destroy the last vestiges of Iran’s civil
society.
The authorities have further eroded fair trial rights
and have executed more than 2,500 people, including
juvenile offenders, in blatant violation of international law.
In a submission to the UN Human Rights Council ahead
of the session, Amnesty International concluded that
Iran is “failing on all fronts” when it comes to human rights.
The organization is calling on the country’s authorities
to lift restrictions on the rights to freedom of
expression, association and peaceful assembly,
end discrimination against women and minorities,
impose an immediate moratorium on the use of the
death penalty, and end torture and other ill-treatment,
unfair trials and ongoing crimes against humanity.
During its last review session, Iran accepted just 130
out of the 291 recommendations it received from
other states. Amnesty International’s analysis indicates
that the Iranian authorities have failed to deliver on
the majority of those promises.
Iran rejected calls during its last UPR to protect the
rights of human rights defenders, stop their harassment
and release those imprisoned for peacefully exercising
their rights to freedom of expression, association and
assembly.
“Instead of strengthening co-operation with civil society
and human rights organizations, as Iran had pledged
to do, the authorities have instead further undermined
these rights, intensifying their crackdown on dissent,” said
Philip Luther.
Those unjustly imprisoned include journalists, artists
and human rights defenders including lawyers, women’s
rights defenders, minority rights activists, labour rights
activists, environmental activists and those seeking
truth, justice and reparations for the 1988 prison massacre.
Some of those jailed have been given shockingly harsh
prison sentences, in some cases lasting several decades.
Human rights lawyer Amirsalar Davoudi was sentenced
to 29 years and three months in prison and 111 lashes
for his human rights work and is required to serve
15 years of this sentence. Lawyer and women’s
rights defender Nasrin Sotoudeh was sentenced to
38 years and 148 lashes for her peaceful activism
and is required to serve 17 years of her sentence.
As well as continuing to subject women and girls to
discrimination in law and practice, Iran’s authorities
have rejected ratification of the UN Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women and failed to criminalize gender-based violence,
including marital rape, domestic violence and early and
forced marriage.
Women’s rights defenders, including those who have
campaigned against Iran’s discriminatory and degrading
forced veiling laws, have faced arbitrary arrest, detention,
torture and other ill-treatment, unfair trials and lengthy
prison sentences. They have also faced harassment and
abuse by pro-government vigilantes for defying such laws.
Iran also continues to deny defendants the right to a fair trial,
including by refusing them access to lawyers during
investigations and trials, and continues to convict people
based on “confessions” extracted through torture
and other ill-treatment.
The authorities have a dreadful record of flouting prisoners’
right to health, deliberately denying medical care
to prisoners of conscience, often as punishment,
amounting to torture and other ill-treatment. Human
rights defender Arash Sadeghi continues to be
tortured through the denial of cancer treatment.
Meanwhile, in a relentless execution spree, more than
2,500 people have been put to death since Iran’s last
UPR session, including at least 17 who were under 18 at
the time of the crime, in flagrant violation of international law.
The Iranian authorities also continue to commit the ongoing
crime against humanity of enforced disappearance by
systematically concealing the fate or whereabouts of
several thousand imprisoned political dissidents who
were forcibly disappeared and extrajudicially executed
in secret between July and September 1988.
“The Iranian authorities must reverse the catastrophic
deterioration of their human rights record,” said Philip Luther.
“That means releasing prisoners of conscience, ending
the persecution of human rights defenders, granting
defendants the right to a fair trial and putting an end to
their grotesque use of the death penalty by establishing
an immediate moratorium with a view to abolishing it completely.
“It also means immediately disclosing the truth regarding
the fate of victims of the 1988 massacres, stopping the
destruction of mass grave sites containing the remains of
the victims, and bringing to justice those suspected to be
responsible for these crimes against humanity.”
For more information or to arrange an
interview please contact:Sara Hashash,
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posted by Mori A. at
1:29 PM
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