UN Chief Urges Cooperation With UN Rapporteur For Iran
The UN Secretary General wants the Islamic Republic to cooperate with the special UN rapporteur on Iran, Ahmad Shaheed.
The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran reports that, in his latest report, Ban Ki-Moon expressed disappointment at the lack of cooperation between Islamic Republic authorities and Shaheed, the UN investigator charged with reviewing human rights conditions in Iran.
Last June, after numerous reports of human rights violations in Iran, Shaheed was given the UN mandate to probe the state of human rights in the country.
Iranian authorities have refused to grant Shaheed permission to travel to Iran.
In his report, Ban Ki-Moon expresses regret “that despite requests for a country visit, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran has not yet been admitted into the country.”
The Secretary General goes on to “call upon the government [of Iran] to strengthen collaboration with the international human rights mechanisms.”
The UN Secretary General notes that a working-level delegation from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights was denied permission to visit with the Iranian opposition leaders being held under house arrest and other political prisoners or even to meet with independent civil society representatives.
Iran maintains that the reports prepared by Shaheed and the Secretary General of the United Nations are “unprofessional, unbalanced, unreliable, politically partial, and in fact a copy-paste of one another.”
Ban Ki-Moon challenged that statement in his report, saying the Special Rapporteur has “stressed that engagement with the country mandate-holder can only lessen the potential for politicization over which Iran has repeatedly expressed concern.”
The UN chief’s report notes with concern the “increased number of executions including public executions of juvenile offenders, amputations, flogging, arbitrary arrest and detention, unfair trials, torture and ill-treatment, and the crackdown on media professionals, film makers, human rights defenders, lawyers and opposition activists.”
However, the Secretary General commends the steps taken by the Islamic Republic judiciary to “revoke stoning as a method of execution and to limit the application of the death penalty for juvenile offenders” but calls for further revision of the “Islamic Penal Code and juvenile justice laws to ensure compliance with international human rights standards.”
