Reporting by PMOI/MEK
Iran, November 19, 2020—The United Nations General Assembly adopted on Wednesday a resolution condemning the Iranian regime’s human rights abuses. Passed with 79 affirmative votes, this is the 67th UN resolution on the human rights situation in Iran since the mullahs rose to power in 1979.
The resolution raises concern at the “alarmingly high frequency of the imposition and carrying-out of the death penalty” in Iran. These include executions that were undertaken against persons on the basis of forced confessions, execution of minors, and executions carried out for crimes that “do not qualify as the most serious crimes,” the resolution warns. The UN resolution stresses that that the regime is in violation of its international obligations and in breach of international covenants, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The resolution also raises 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 wrestling champion Navid Afkari, executed in September. There is also mention of suspicious deaths in custody, as well as long-standing violations involving the Iranian judiciary and security agencies, including enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions.
The regime is also condemned for its 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.
The regime’s repressive measures have increased in recent months, as the regime neared the first anniversary of the November 2019 uprising, in which protesters in than 190 cities across Iran called for the overthrow of the regime. The regime only managed to maintain its hold on power through a brutal crackdown and the murder of more than 1,500 protesters.
The Iranian regime is furious over the resolution. On November 16, Ali Bagheri-Kani, the international deputy of the regime’s judiciary, told the official IRNA news agency, “The efforts of some countries to pass a resolution in the UN General Assembly Third Committee against the Islamic republic has no legal basis and is not based on the human rights realities in Iran.”
Bagheri-Kani also accused Canada, which has prepared the draft resolution, of being a human rights abuser.
Following the vote on the resolution, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), issued a statement, in which it reiterated, “Those responsible for the majority of the crimes to which the resolution has referred are the very people who turned the November 2019 uprising into a bloodbath, killing at least 1,500, including young people, wounding 4,000 and arresting 12,000 more. The same officials who have been continuously perpetrating crime against humanity for the past four decades, in particular the 1988 massacre of political prisoners.”
I welcome the adoption of the 67th United Nations resolution condemning the grave and systematic violations of #HumanRights in #Iran. https://t.co/7V920SdXms pic.twitter.com/YWYWVrjEfC
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) November 18, 2020
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the NCRI said, “although this resolution has failed to address many aspects of the flagrant violations of human rights in Iran, it leaves no doubt that this regime is the world’s leading abuser of human rights today, has flagrantly trampled on the Iranian nation’s fundamental rights in all its political, social and economic aspects, and is in no way compatible with the twenty-first century, and must therefore be banished by the world community. She added that impunity for the criminal leaders of this regime should end and all of them must face justice for 40 years of crime against humanity.”
Mrs. Rajavi called for a long-overdue international investigation into the regime’s crimes, particularly the crackdown on the November 2019 protests and the 1988 massacre of 30,000 political prisoners. “The lack of action vis-à-vis continuing crime against humanity is a scar on the conscience of humanity,” she said. “Time has come to hold regime leaders accountable for continuing crimes against humanity such as the mass killing during the November 2019 uprising and the 1988 massacre of political prisoners.”
The lack of action vis-à-vis the clerical regime’s continuing crimes against humanity is a scar on the conscience of humanity. As such, an investigation into these horrific mass murders & the prosecution of those responsible is the litmus test before the international community
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) November 18, 2020
