UN: Human rights abuses spiral in Iran
2013-03-11 22:39
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Geneva - Human rights violations in Iran spiralled in 2012,
a UN monitor said on Monday in a report spotlighting abuses including
repression of freedom of speech, torture and secret executions.
"There has been an apparent increase in the degree
of seriousness of human rights violations in the Islamic Republic of
Iran," Ahmed Shaheed said in his report to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
Shaheed highlighted "frequent and
disconcerting" reports about "punitive state action" against a
number of groups, including the jailing of opposition politicians, journalists
and human rights campaigners.
He also expressed concern about rights violations
affecting women and religious and ethnic minorities, and retaliatory action
against individuals that Tehran suspects of co-operating with UN monitors.
Such abuses remain "widespread",
"systemic" and "systematic", said Shaheed, former foreign
minister of the Maldives who was named the UN's Iran monitor in 2011.
Shaheed, who is forbidden from visiting the country, said
he regretted Tehran's unwillingness to co-operate with him, despite his
repeated efforts.
He wrote his report by contacting campaigners, exiles and
victims of the abuses.
"Moreover, a lack of government investigation and
redress generally fosters a culture of impunity," he said, emphasising that
this undermined global human rights accords signed by Iran.
The torture of detainees was also an ongoing concern
which Shaheed said he had raised in a previous report.
"The Iranian government maintained that allegations
of torture in the country are baseless since the country's laws forbid the use
of torture and the use of evidence solicited under duress," he said.
"The existence of legal safeguards does not in
itself invalidate allegations of torture, and does not remove the obligation to
thoroughly investigate such allegations," he added.
Secret executions
Turning his focus to executions, Shaheed said while 297
were officially announced by the government - 58 of them carried out in public
- some 200 "secret executions" had been acknowledged by family
members, prison officials or members of the judiciary.
Nearly 500 executions - both official and unofficial -
were carried out in 2012, compared to 661 in 2011, and 542 the year before.
Despite that drop, the number of executions had,
nevertheless, risen progressively in recent years, Shaheed said, having stood
at less than a hundred a year a decade ago.
He said he was "alarmed" by the escalating rate
"especially in the absence of fair trial standards" and for offences that
did not warrant capital punishment including alcohol consumption, adultery and
drug-trafficking.
