UNGA Ignores Iran’s Horrific Human Rights Record

(New York, N.Y.) – During its 75th annual session this week, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) failed, once again, to shine a spotlight on the widespread and systematic human rights violations occurring in—and levied by—Iran. The regime’s horrific execution rates, violent repression on dissent, rampant discrimination against women and minorities, and inhumane treatment of political prisoners makes the absence of a high-level peace and security meeting on Iran‘s shocking disregard for human rights and its ongoing crimes against humanity a gross oversight of the gathering. The UN’s indifference comes even as its own Special Rapporteur expressed “grave concern” over Iran’s human rights abuses in this year’s report on the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The violent crackdown on civil protests that occurred in November 2019 and the further erosion of judicial process over the past year offered a crucial opportunity for the UN to deliver a strong and clear message to the regime that its disregard for human rights will not be tolerated. In failing to do so and by turning a blind eye to Iran’s appalling mistreatment of its own people, the United Nations has failed to uphold its responsibility to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The recent execution of wrestler Navid Afkari, who was reportedly subject to a forced confession, as well as indications that the regime is preparing to amputate the fingers of four men after additional forced confessions, make this inattention to the Iranian human rights situation all the more outrageous. United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI)’s resource, Cruel and Inhuman: Executions and Other Punishment in Iran, outlines the regime’s judicial injustices and violent human rights offenses. UANI’s profile of Iran’s Chief Justice Ebrahim Raisi also details his bloodstained career within the regime’s judiciary.

To read UANI’s resource, Cruel and Inhuman: Executions and Other Punishment in Iran, please click here.

To read UANI’s profile, Ayatollah Ebrahim Raisi: Chief Justice of Iran, please click here. 

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