Iran: UN condemns human rights record

In his presentation to the UN General Assembly yesterday, Ahmed Shaheed – the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran – expressed concern over alleged violations in Iran’s judicial system including torture, cruel or degrading treatment of detainees, and the imposition of the death penalty without proper safeguards.

His report, based on first-hand testimonies from individuals and groups, documents the use of physical and psychological mistreatment and torture for the purposes of inducing self-incrimination;   exorbitant bail requirements; lack of independence among judges (with some sentences being decided prior to a defendant’s appearance in court); and the widespread harassment, detention, and deprivation of rights of human rights activists.  The report also considers impediments to gender equality and targeted violence and discrimination against minority groups.

One of the most disturbing areas of the report is the practice of secret executions.  Second only to China in numbers of annual executions, it seems the capital punishment rate in Iran could be much higher than has already been feared.   As well as public executions, ‘secret group executions inside prisons, which reportedly occur in alarmingly high numbers, are often carried out without the knowledge and presence of families and lawyers’.

While more than 200 officially announced executions have already taken place in 2011, it is thought that at least 146 secret executions have been carried out this year, and it is reported that more than 300 secret executions occurred in Vakilabad prison alone in 2010.

Iran is one of the only countries in the world to execute juveniles (those convicted of a crime before they were 18 years old) – which is against international law – and the International Federation for Human Rights reported in September that Iran had publicly hanged Alireza Molla-Soltani, the fourth juvenile to be executed in 2011.  After warning of a sharp rise in the execution rate in April of this year, Amnesty International has this week issued an appeal on behalf two Kurdish political prisoners who are at risk of imminent execution.

As the UNHCR also detailed this week, Iran remains one of the countries producing the most asylum claims:  of asylum claims made in Europe in the first 6 months of 2011, Iran was in the top five countries of origins.  This is not surprising given the pervasive assault on human rights that unceasingly occurs there.

In just the last two months, the prominent human rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi was sentenced to 11 years in prison.  Student activist Peyman Aref was lashed 74 times for ‘insulting the Iranian president’.

Baha’i leaders were sentenced to 20 years in prison and a Christian pastor is at risk of execution, under charges of ‘apostasy’.  This week, film-maker Jafar Panahi lost his appeal against a six-year prison sentence, and 20 year ban on film-making, travelling abroad or talking to the press for ‘creating anti-regime propaganda’  These are just a handful of the human rights violations that reach the international media, with many stories going unreported and unheard.

And yet, the UK Border Agency continues to refuse the asylum claims of those seeking sanctuary in the UK, and continues to deport those they have refused.  NCADC works with  individuals who have experienced persecution in Iran and whose families continue to be harassed, but whom UKBA attempts – and succeeds – to remove, placing them at huge risk with no regards for the consequences.  NCADC is particularly concerned about the use of the Dublin II Convention to effect the removal of Iranians: while the Home Office uses the smokescreen of a ‘safe third country’, we have received worrying reports that these individuals have then been subsequently, and swiftly, deported to Iran.