This resolution notably reads that the EP “expresses its serious concern about the deterioration of the human rights situation in Iran since President Ahmadinejad took office in June 2005”.
The European Parliament “calls on the Iranian authorities to accelerate the process of investigation into the suspicious deaths and killings of intellectuals and political activists, to bring the alleged perpetrators to justice and to unconditionally provide adequate medical assistance to those prisoners who are in poor health”.
The European institution “deeply deplores the deaths of student activist Akbar Mohammadi and political prisoner Valiollah Feyz [Mahdavi] as a result of their hunger strikes and calls for the release of Manoucher Mohammadi; requests that students should not be barred from higher education due to their peaceful political activities”.
The MEPs said they are “appalled that there are still cases of executions of minors and sentences of stoning”. They “condemns the current lack of respect for minority rights”, and call “upon the authorities to eliminate all forms of discrimination based on religious or ethnic grounds or against persons belonging to minorities, such as Kurds, Azeris, Arabs and Baluchis”. The EP “calls on the Iranian authorities to immediately halt the imminent execution of the Arabs Abdullah Suleymani, Abdulreza Sanawati Zergani, Qasem Salamat, Mohammad Jaab Pour, Abdulamir Farjallah Jaab, Alireza Asakreh, Majed Alboghubaish, Khalaf Derhab Khudayrawi, Malek Banitamim, Sa’id Saki and Abdullah Al-Mansouri”.
The European Parliament “expresses its concern about the continuous discrimination in law and in practice against women; condemns the use of violence and discrimination against women in Iran, which remains a serious problem; further condemns the use of violence by the Iranian security forces against women who had gathered earlier this year to celebrate International Women’s Day on 8 March 2006; condemns furthermore the Iranian security forces’ violent disruption of a peaceful demonstration on 12 June 2006 by women and men advocating an end to legal discrimination against women in Iran”.
The resolution also stressed that it “strongly condemns the open call by President Ahmadinejad for a purge of liberal and secular academics in the universities and calls for all those expelled to be allowed to return and to teach according to the elementary rights of academic freedom”.