The broad international welcome given to the recent nuclear agreement between the regime in Iran and the major world powers has failed to mollify critics of the country’s human-rights record, the Christian weekly Church Times wrote.
Moreover, it has not had the approval of Middle Eastern allies of the West, which see Iran as an untrustworthy and destabilising force in the region, it said.
“For many critics of Iran, the worry is not so much what is included in the agreement as what is omitted. Sanctions against Iran are being lifted, and the country is being readmitted into the international community without being required to commit itself to improving its human-rights record”, the Church Times wrote.
According to Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), despite President Hassan Rouhani’s promises to ensure human rights and equality for all, “Iran has witnessed a deterioration of human rights since his election to office, two years ago. It continues to imprison political opponents, journalists, and members of religious minorities — in particular, converts to Christianity and members of the Baha’i faith”.
The chief executive of CSW, Mervyn Thomas, said: “Since the new agreement effectively ends Iran’s long-standing isolation, it should also encourage the nation to fully embrace its international undertakings, particularly with regard to human rights.
“CSW therefore calls on the international community to press Iran to fulfil its human-rights obligations, and to ensure that freedom, justice, and equality before the law are guaranteed to all its citizens.”
Members of both the United Kingdom’s Houses of Parliament from all the main parties, at a meeting in Westminster last week, expressed concern that the agreement with Iran did not deal more forcibly with the country’s nuclear industry as a whole, the Church Times said.
“Speakers at the meeting, organised by the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom (BPCIF), said that the nuclear deal ignored six UN Security Council resolutions that required Tehran to dismantle its nuclear programme, and stop all uranium enrichment. The cross-party panellists warned that the Iranian regime could not be trusted. Compromising on the requirements stipulated in these resolutions would never block Tehran’s pathway to a bomb”, it wrote.
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