Hengau: Monday, March 18, 2024
A coalition of 43 human rights organizations energetic in Iran and on the worldwide stage, together with Amnesty International, Hengaw Human Rights Organization, Center for Human Rights in Iran, Human Rights Organization of Iran, and UNPO, issued a joint assertion calling on members of the UN Human Rights Council attending its fifty fifth session to contemplate reappointing Javaid Rahman because the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran and to assist the extension of the mandate of the International Fact-Finding Commission.
To: United Nations Human Rights Council Member States
Your Honor,
We, the undersigned Iranian and worldwide human rights organizations, urge your nation to assist the renewal of the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on the state of affairs of human rights within the Islamic Republic of Iran and the extension of the mandate of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran (FFMI) on the Human Rights Council’s fifty fifth session. The continuation of those two separate however complementary mandates is important for the Human Rights Council to meet its mandate to advertise and shield human rights in Iran.
We additionally urge your authorities to make use of this chance to publicly increase the alarm over the intense and persevering with human rights violations going down in your nation, a few of which FFMI has decided “quantity to crimes in opposition to humanity, dedicated as a part of widespread and systematic assaults in opposition to the civilian inhabitants, particularly girls, ladies and different voices of human rights assist,” and to demand an finish to those violations and for justice, fact and reparation.
***
During this session, the Council was as soon as once more offered with plentiful proof demonstrating the persevering with disaster of systematic impunity inside the nation for violations of worldwide regulation and different human rights abuses, together with widespread violations of the rights to life, the proper to be free from torture and different ill-treatment, safety and liberty of individual, the proper to a good trial, the proper to an efficient treatment, faith or perception, freedom of expression, freedom of peaceable meeting and affiliation, privateness, well being, training, livelihood and work, as detailed within the annex to this letter.
Women and ladies proceed to be handled as second-class residents amid an intensifying crackdown on those that fail to adjust to humiliating and abusive obligatory veil legal guidelines. Lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, transgender, and intersex folks, in addition to ethnic and non secular minorities, are additionally topic to systematic discrimination. Targets embody members of non secular or faith-based minorities, together with Ahwazi Arabs, Azerbaijani Turks, Baluch, Kurds, Turkmen, Baha’is, Christians, Gonabadi Dervishes, Jews, Yarsan (Afri Haq), Sunni Muslims, and atheists.
***
FFMI’s mandate, established following the loss of life in custody of Zina Mahsa Amini, stays crucial to handle violations dedicated within the context of the nationwide protests in 2022, significantly these in opposition to girls and kids. Not solely do violations associated to the 2022 protests proceed to reverberate throughout Iran, however FFMI’s mandate performs an important function in addressing the impunity that fuels these and different violations.
As beforehand talked about, crimes below worldwide regulation associated to the 2022 protests proceed. Thousands of individuals, together with kids, have been topic to abusive interrogations, arbitrary detention, unjust prosecution, and suspension or expulsion from training and employment for peacefully exercising their human rights. Intelligence and safety providers proceed to focus on households of these unlawfully killed throughout protests calling for fact and justice for the killing of their family members. At least 9 folks have been arbitrarily executed in reference to the protests after grossly unfair trials. In January 2024, UN consultants strongly condemned the execution of Mohamed Gobadrou, noting that a minimum of 4 persons are reportedly at imminent threat of execution and a minimum of 15 face the loss of life penalty in reference to the nationwide protests. Meanwhile, impunity continues, and there have been no neutral, impartial, or efficient nationwide investigations into illegal and deadly pressure, torture, and different abuses, together with rape and different sexual violence, and different critical human rights violations.
As the Council highlighted in its decision final 12 months, “persistent and systematic impunity and lack of accountability for critical human rights violations create an enabling setting for perpetrators, undermine victims’ rights to an efficient treatment, and perpetuate the cycle of violence”. This widespread impunity for human rights violations and worldwide crimes have to be addressed if the patterns of previous violations are to be averted sooner or later. Only an impartial investigative physique with adequate assets, personnel and time can adequately handle this elementary problem. In this regard, the FFMI clearly has a key function to play.
In line with its mandate, FFMI has positioned the state of affairs of ladies and ladies on the middle of its investigations. The investigation concludes that crimes in opposition to humanity have been dedicated within the type of gender-based persecution, and that “pervasive and deep-rooted structural and institutionalized discrimination in opposition to girls and ladies that permeates all spheres of their private and non-private lives” in Iran “each set off and facilitate” the violations and crimes it uncovered. An expanded mandate would permit FFMI to extra deeply analyze the gender dimensions of the human rights violations and crimes it paperwork.
Despite delays within the operationalization course of and budgetary challenges past its management, FFMI has made important progress in investigating violations dedicated within the context of the protests. However, as famous above, gaps stay and FFMI wants extra time and acceptable assets to course of the big quantity of proof collected. More time would allow FFMI to handle remaining gaps in its findings earlier than submitting its last report and additional the trail to justice, fact, and reparations for critical human rights violations and violations of worldwide regulation by Iranian officers. This would be sure that the voices of survivors, victims, and their households who share their testimonies and take part in establishing fact and justice are heard.
***
Abdulrahman Boromand, Center for Human Rights in Iran (ABC)
Human rights organizations
Ahvaz Human Rights Organization
All human rights for all folks in Iran
Amnesty International
Arce Sevom
Article 18
Article 19
Association for Human Rights of Azerbaijanis in Iran (AHRAZ)
Balochistan Activist Campaign
Balochistan Human Rights Organization
Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)
Iranian Center for Human Rights
Center for Human Rights (CSHR)
Ensemble Contre La Paine de Mort (ECPM)
Femena
Frontline Defender
World Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Harm Reduction International
Henggo Human Rights Group
Human Rights Watch
Impact on Iran
International Bar Association Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI)
International Commission of Jurists (ICJ)
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
Iran Human Rights
Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC)
Justice for Iran
Kurdistan Human Rights Association – Geneva (KMMK-G)
Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN)
Kurdopa Human Rights Organization
Mian Group
Minority Rights Group International
Outright Action International
PEN America
Siamak Porzand Foundation (SPF)
United for Iran
UNPO – Unrepresented Nations and Peoples’ Organization
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)
World Coalition Against the Death Penalty
World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT)
6Rang – Iranian Lesbian and Transgender Network