Activists said that they were appalled when they learned that Said Mortazavi, a key player in Iran’s hardline judiciary, was part of the Iranian delegation at the Council.
"His presence at the Human Rights Council is really shocking. It is an insult to the victims of repression in Iran," Lynn Tehini, of the journalist’s rights group Reporters Without Borders, told AFP.
The Council began its inaugural two-week session on Monday, and UN officials confirmed that Mortazavi was indeed a delegation member.
Iranian human rights advocates, including the lawyer and Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, have accused Mortazavi of being present in July 2003 when press photographer Zahra Kazemi received a fatal blow to the head.
Kazemi, who was 54, died in custody in Tehran after being arrested for photographing a demonstration outside a prison in the Iranian capital. Family lawyers have accused the judiciary of a cover-up, a charge backed by Canada.
Iran’s former reformist government had acknowledged that Kazemi was violently beaten in custody, but the judiciary had initially claimed she died of a stroke and went on to say she may have been injured in a fall.
The affair has badly damaged Iran’s relations with Canada.
Iran’s judiciary rejected Canada’s demand for Kazemi’s body — which was hastily buried inside Iran after her death — to be dug up and handed over for a new autopsy.
Iran, which does not recognize dual nationality, asserts that Canada has no business looking into the affair.
Last November, Iran’s judiciary upheld its earlier acquittal of an intelligence agent accused of Kazemi’s murder, but called for a new probe.
Campaigners also have Mortazavi in their sights for other reasons: he was responsible for the closure of dozens of reformist newspapers when he was a member of Iran’s press council.