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HomeNEWSRESISTANCEIranian opposition president welcomes UN resolution condemning human rights violations in Iran

Iranian opposition president welcomes UN resolution condemning human rights violations in Iran

Reporting by PMOI/MEK

Iran, December 17, 2020—On Wednesday, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution presented last month by its Third Committee, which raised concerns over and condemned human rights violations in Iran. This marks the 67th time that the Iranian regime is being condemned at the international level for its human rights abuses.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), welcomed the adoption of the UN resolution, and said, “[The] main perpetrators of the atrocities mentioned in this resolution are those who have been continuously involved in crimes against humanity during that past four decades, particularly the massacre of political prisoners in 1988, the brutal suppression of the November 2019 uprising that left over 1,500 protesters killed, and 12,000 arrested.”

Madam Rajavi also stressed that the resolution only covers a “small part of the regime’s atrocities” and “leaves no doubt that the regime is the leading human rights violator in the world today.”

 

 

Adopted with 82 affirmative votes, the resolution expresses serious concern “at the alarmingly high frequency of the imposition and carrying-out of the death penalty, [….] in violation of its international obligations, including executions undertaken against persons on the basis of forced confessions or for crimes that do not qualify as the most serious crimes, including crimes that are overly broad or vaguely defined, in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [….] the continued imposition of the death penalty against minors [….] in violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.”

A UN Resolution on human rights violations in Iran was adopted with 82 affirmative votes

A UN Resolution on human rights violations in Iran was adopted with 82 affirmative votes

The resolution also expresses concern over the use of “torture and other ill-treatments or unjust, inhuman and humiliating punishments [….] including sexual assaults and punishments that are severely unlevel to the context of the crime [….] and the commitments and international norms, including the UN minimum standard laws in treating the prisoners.”

It also voices alarm at “the widespread and systematic use of arbitrary arrests and detention [….] the use of torture to extract confessions, such as in the case of Navid Afkari and others, and cases of suspicious deaths in custody, as well as long-standing violations involving the Iranian judiciary and security agencies, including enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions, …. and suppression of “the right to freedom of expression and opinion, including widespread restrictions on Internet access and in digital contexts, and the right to freedom of association and peaceful assembly” and…. “harassment, intimidation and persecution of political opponents, human rights defenders, and “all forms of discrimination and other human rights violations against women and girls in law and in practice,” and calls for the release of all those arrested during the November 2019 and January 2020 protests.

The resolution comes on the heels of a letter by UN human rights experts to Iranian regime authorities, in which they raised concern over the continued cover-up of the conditions of Iranian political prisoners executed in 1988.

The letter contains detailed accounts of Iranian authorities harassing and lying to the families of the victims. It also raises concerns about the lack of prosecution of the perpetrators of the massacre. “There is systemic impunity enjoyed by those who ordered and carried out the extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances. To date, no official in Iran has been brought to justice and many of the officials involved continue to hold positions of power including key judicial, prosecutorial and governmental bodies responsible for ensuring the victims receive justice,” the UN experts warn.

“We are concerned that the situation may amount to crimes against humanity,” the signatories of the letter write, adding that if the regime does not uphold its obligations under international human rights laws, the rights experts will “call on the international community to take action to investigate the cases including through the establishment of an international investigation.”

The regime was given a 60-day window to provide its response to the letter and take action and clarify. Absent a proper response, the UN experts made the letter public on the eve of the International Human Rights Day.

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