“Today, at the United Nations General Assembly, Canada will table the toughest resolution on the human rights situation in Iran,” Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said in the House of Commons just ahead of the UN filing.
“For the first time, under this government, we are calling on the investigators to focus on Iran’s appalling human rights record.”
The draft resolution calls on UN investigators of extra-judicial executions, torture, free speech suppression, persecution of human rights activists, arbitrary detention, and enforced disappearances to “pay particular attention” to Iran.
It notes that Iranian regime has offered a “standing invitation” for investigation by any of the UN experts, but has “not fulfilled any requests from these special mechanisms to visit the country in four years.”
The text reflects past Canadian-led resolutions in identifying torture, flogging, amputations and stoning as “serious ongoing and recurring human-rights violations” in Iran.
The call for more UN investigator involvement comes amid criticism that many of the “special rapporteurs” spend a disproportionate amount of time probing alleged abuses in advanced democracies, while ignoring countries where the worst abuse takes place, the report said.