Mrs. Maryam Rajavi: Resolution leaves no excuse for appeasement of the mullahs
Human rights situation in Iran must be referred to the UN Security Council
The UN General Assembly Third Committee passed a resolution in its session today condemning the brutal and continued violations of human rights in Iran. The majority of UN member states voted in favor of the resolution. The resolution strongly condemns the continuing use of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, continued carrying out of public executions, and, on a large scale, other executions, and, in particular, deplores the execution of persons who were below 18 years of age at the time their offence was committed, and also continued violations of freedom of assembly, opinion and expression, violations of the rights of women and religious and ethnic minorities.
The resolution was approved despite the clerical regime’s use of all its diplomatic resources, with assistance from a number of other state violators of human rights, to prevent a vote on the measure. This resolution is, however, significantly tougher than last year’s resolution and was approved with a larger majority than the previous year. The resolution was brought by 45 countries and with 77 countries voting in favor of the condemnation.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the Iranian Resistance’s President-elect congratulated the Iranian people for the condemnation of the clerical regime’s flagrant and systematic violations of human rights in Iran by the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly. She added that this resolution while it only reflects a small portion of the clerical regime’s crimes against the Iranian people indicates the international community’s recognition of the unprecedented intensification of human rights violations in Iran.
Mrs. Rajavi reiterated that the resolution by the Third Committee, the 52nd resolution by various UN bodies, in condemning executions, torture, suppression, brutal and anti-human discrimination against women, ethnic and religious minorities in Iran, leaves no excuse for appeasing this medieval regime and shows that the failed policy of human rights dialogue, which has only emboldened the mullahs in human rights violations should be put aside once and for all.
Mrs. Rajavi pointed out that as the Iranian Resistance had pointed out from the day Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was instated as the mullahs’ president, this regime has intensified its war and suppression on the Iranian people and has declared war on the international community by pursuing its export of terrorism and fundamentalism and its nuclear weapons program. She added that the Iranian nation condemn any appeasement of the clerical regime and seek a firm policy against the mullahs and the referral of its violations of human rights, export of terrorism, and its nuclear weapons program to the United Nations Security Council.
The UN resolution condemns the continuing use of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment such as flogging and amputations; the continued carrying out of public executions, including multiple public executions and, on a large scale, other executions in the absence of respect for internationally recognized safeguards, and, in particular, deplores the execution of persons who were below 18 years of age at the time their offence was committed, contrary to the obligations of the Iranian regime under article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and in spite of the announcement of a moratorium on juvenile executions.
The Third Committee also condemned the continuing violence and discrimination against women and girls in law and in practice, and the refusal to take steps to address this systemic discrimination, noting in this context its rejection to accede to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
The resolution also condemns the continuing harassment, intimidation and persecution of human rights defenders, non-governmental organizations, political opponents, religious dissenters, students, clerics, academics and web bloggers, including through undue restrictions on the freedoms of assembly, opinion and expression, the use of arbitrary arrest, and the unjustified closure of newspapers and blocking of Internet sites, as well as the absence of many necessary conditions for free and fair elections.
The Third Committee also condemns the persistent failure to comply fully with international standards in the administration of justice and, in particular, the absence of due process of law, the refusal to provide fair and public hearings, the denial of the right to counsel and access to counsel by those detained, the use of national security laws to deny human rights, the harassment, intimidation and persecution of defence lawyers and legal defenders, the lack of respect for internationally recognized safeguards, inter alia, with respect to persons belonging to religious, ethnic or national minorities, officially recognized or otherwise, the application of arbitrary prison sentences, and the violation of the rights of detainees, including the systematic and arbitrary use of prolonged solitary confinement, the failure to provide proper medical care to those imprisoned and the arbitrary denial of contact between detainees and their family members.
Also condemned are the continuing discrimination, and other human rights violations against persons belonging to ethnic and religious minorities, recognized or otherwise, including Arabs, Kurds, Baluchi, Christians, Jews, Sunni Muslims, and the Bahá’ì.
The resolution decides that the General Assembly should continue its examination of the situation of human rights in Iran at its sixty-first session next year.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
November 18, 2005
