Japanese sociologist Mai Sato, who will develop into the following United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran on the finish of July, is a number one skilled on prison regulation who is extremely revered amongst human rights activists.
Sato was one in all 11 candidates for the submit, and was the main contender out of three finalists submitted to the Human Rights Council. The Council’s president, Moroccan Omar Zunibel, has formally provided Sato the submit, and she’s going to take up her place on August 1 (although it’s unlikely that she’s going to flip it down).
Ms Mai Sato has a distinguished profession centered on regulation and criminology analysis. The Human Rights Commission’s Advisory Group, which oversees the appointment course of, acknowledged her as having the correct abilities for the job and “intensive expertise within the discipline of human rights.”
Dr Sato was awarded the Young Criminologist of the Year Award from Japan in 2014 and is presently an Associate Professor at Monash University, a prestigious college in Australia. He was beforehand a Research Fellow and Associate Professor on the Australian National University, a Lecturer and Associate Professor on the University of Reading, a Research Fellow on the University of Oxford and an Oxford Howard Postdoctoral Fellow. He has additionally labored as a Research Fellow on the Crime and Justice Policy Institute within the UK, a Postdoctoral Fellow on the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law in Germany and an International Short-Term Expert for the United Nations Development Programme in Turkey.
Sato’s appointment has been a lot anticipated amongst NGOs and human rights activists, and he has been well-regarded by these he has labored with.
“Mai is an extremely dedicated and compassionate anti-death penalty campaigner who has finished loads to attract consideration to the problem in Australia and different international locations, together with Iran,” stated Kylie Moore-Gilbert, an Australian tutorial who was imprisoned in Iran in 2018 on espionage prices.
Moore-Gilbert described Sato as an unbelievable individual and advised Iran International he was enthusiastic about Sato’s new position, saying he had “little question she’s going to excel on this difficult position, which can embody shining a highlight on the sequence of horrific executions witnessed in Iran lately.”
Sato would be the seventh UN particular rapporteur on human rights in Iran. He will serve a three-year time period with the potential for being prolonged for an additional three years. Sato’s predecessor, Javaid Rehman, will step down on July 31. Rehman served the utmost six-year time period allowed for a particular rapporteur.
Professor Lehmann has an enormous job to tackle. He had an distinctive status amongst his fellow legal professionals and was extensively revered by human rights organisations, activists and inside the UN for his meticulous and detailed work. His work has taken on important significance in gentle of the worsening human rights state of affairs in Iran following the crackdown on the Mahsa protests. There has additionally been a shift in Professor Lehmann’s personal method to his position as Special Rapporteur, as he has develop into extra outspoken concerning the scale and brutality of the crackdown.
“Professor Rahman was an exceptionally devoted and sensible reporter,” outstanding human rights lawyer Helena Kennedy advised Iran International. “Over the years, he documented and analyzed the numerous heinous crimes dedicated by Iran towards its personal individuals. His thorough investigations and subsequent experiences on human rights violations by the state had been of the very best and most rigorous requirements. His work culminated in his condemnation of the homicide of Martha Amini and the following arrests of girls protesting the gender apartheid they expertise daily. I salute his devoted work and thank him on behalf of all those that consider in freedom all over the world.”
Mahmoud Amiri Moghadam of Human Rights Watch says that by specializing in amassing proof and information not solely on human rights violations in Iran but in addition on the perpetrators, Rehman has “raised the problems of impunity and accountability on the agenda.” Dr Sato’s work means that she is a really comparable kind to Rehman, and he or she is simply as cautious to keep away from any actual or perceived conflicts of curiosity in her work as a rapporteur, because the UN calls them.
The Human Rights Council Advisory Group famous that Mr Sato had valued “independence, impartiality, integrity and objectivity” in working beneath his mandate, which included stepping down from his positions as director of Eleos Justice and as an unbiased skilled on the Global Coalition Against the Death Penalty and the Australian Government’s Advisory Group on the Death Penalty.
The Advisory Group famous that she clearly understands the mandate and its “challenges,” together with these posed by Iran, which her predecessor skilled. Javaid Rehman has spoken overtly about Iran’s “contemptuous” perspective towards the Human Rights Council and his mandate. Iran’s consultant on the UN in Geneva was generally abusive and disloyal in his non-public interactions with him within the Human Rights Council chambers.
The accusations towards Rehman are basically that he’s a Western pawn with political motives and that the report’s information are unfaithful or had been created to “obscure and deform actuality,” Kazem Gharibabadi, chairman of the Iran Human Rights Council, stated in Rehman’s ultimate report, introduced to the council in March.
The state of affairs has not improved since then. The Islamic Republic has refused entry to the Special Rapporteur and has by no means acknowledged the mission. However, Iran has to this point not been capable of block the mission itself, one thing it was capable of do from 2002 to 2011 by exploiting the country-by-country voting system inside the Human Rights Council, which stays often divided alongside geopolitical strains, leading to predictable voting patterns for and towards the Special Rapporteur’s report on Iran.
Dr Sato’s arrival is unlikely to vary this state of affairs, and there may be little hope that the Islamic Republic will soften its hostility in the direction of an unbiased investigative mission or UN-appointed particular rapporteur on its human rights file.