Tuesday, November 24, 2009
UN General Assembly human rights resolution on Iran
Sixty-fourth sessionThird Committee
Agenda item 69 (c)
Promotion and protection of human rights:
human rights situations and reports of
special rapporteurs and representatives
Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech
Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary,
Iceland, Israel, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg,
Malta, Micronesia (Federated States of), Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand,
Norway, Palau, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Slovakia,
Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and United States of America:
draft resolution
Situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran
The General Assembly,
Guided by the Charter of the United Nations, as well as the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights,1 the International Covenants on Human Rights2 and
other international human rights instruments,
Recalling its previous resolutions on the situation of human rights in the
Islamic Republic of Iran, the most recent of which is resolution 63/191 of
18 December 2008,
1. Takes note of the report of the Secretary General submitted pursuant to
its resolution 63/191,3 which highlights many areas of continuing concern with
respect to the promotion and protection of human rights in the Islamic Republic of
Iran and notes with particular concern negative developments in the area of civil and
political rights since June 2008, and which discusses some positive achievements
with respect to economic and social indicators;
2. Expresses its deep concern at serious ongoing and recurring human rights
violations in the Islamic Republic of Iran relating to, inter alia:
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1 Resolution 217 A (III).
2 Resolution 2200 A (XXI), annex.
3 A/64/357.
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(a) Torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,
including flogging and amputations;
(b) The continuing high incidence and increase in the rate of executions
carried out in the absence of internationally recognized safeguards, including public
executions and executions of juveniles;
(c) Stoning as a method of execution and persons in prison who continue to
face sentences of execution by stoning, notwithstanding a circular from the head of
the judiciary prohibiting stoning;
(d) Arrests, violent repression and sentencing of women exercising their
right to peaceful assembly, a campaign of intimidation against women’s human
rights defenders, and continuing discrimination against women and girls in law and
in practice;
(e) Increasing discrimination and other human rights violations against
persons belonging to religious, ethnic, linguistic or other minorities, recognized or
otherwise, including, inter alia, Arabs, Azeris, Baluchis, Kurds, Christians, Jews,
Sufis and Sunni Muslims and their defenders, and, in particular, attacks on Baha’is
and their faith in State-sponsored media, increasing evidence of efforts by the State
to identify, monitor and arbitrarily detain Baha’is, preventing members of the Baha’i
faith from attending university and from sustaining themselves economically, and
the continuing detention of seven Baha’i leaders who were arrested in March and
May 2008 and faced with serious charges without adequate or timely access to legal
representation;
(f) Ongoing, systemic and serious restrictions of freedom of peaceful
assembly and association and freedom of opinion and expression, including those
imposed on the media, Internet users and trade unions, and increasing harassment,
intimidation and persecution of political opponents and human rights defenders
from all sectors of Iranian society, including arrests and violent repression of labour leaders, labour members peacefully assembling and students, noting in particular the forced closure of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre and the subsequent arrest and harassment of a number of its staff;
(g) Severe limitations and restrictions on freedom of religion and belief,
including arbitrary arrest, indefinite detention and lengthy jail sentences for those
exercising their right to freedom of religion or belief;
(h) Persistent failure to uphold due process of law rights, and violation of the
rights of detainees, including defendants held without charge or held incommunicado,
the systematic and arbitrary use of prolonged solitary confinement, and lack of
timely access to legal representation;
3. Also expresses particular concern at the response of the Government of
the Islamic Republic of Iran following the Presidential election of 12 June 2009 and
the concurrent rise in human rights violations including, inter alia:
(a) Harassment, intimidation and persecution, including by arbitrary arrest,
detention or disappearance, of opposition members, journalists and other media
representatives, bloggers, lawyers, clerics, human rights defenders, academics,
students and others exercising their rights to peaceful assembly and association and
freedom of opinion and expression, resulting in numerous deaths and injuries;
(b) Use of violence and intimidation by Government-directed militias to
forcibly disperse Iranian citizens engaged in the peaceful exercise of freedom of
association, also resulting in numerous deaths and injuries;
(c) Interfering in the right to a fair trial by, inter alia, holding mass trials and
denying defendants access to adequate legal representation, resulting in death
sentences and lengthy jail sentences for some individuals;
(d) Reported use of forced confessions and abuse of prisoners including,
inter alia, rape and torture;
(e) Escalation in the rate of executions in the months following the elections;
(f) Further restrictions on freedom of expression, including severe
restrictions on media coverage of public demonstrations and the disruption of
telecommunications and Internet technology and the forcible closure of the offices
of several organizations involved in the investigation of the situation of persons
imprisoned following the election;
(g) Arbitrary arrest and detention of employees of foreign embassies in
Tehran, thereby unduly interfering with the performance of the functions of those
missions in a manner inconsistent with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic
Relations4 and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations;5
4. Calls upon the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to address the
substantive concerns highlighted in the report of the Secretary-General and the
specific calls to action found in previous resolutions of the General Assembly, and
to respect fully its human rights obligations, in law and in practice, in particular:
(a) To eliminate, in law and in practice, amputations, flogging and other
forms of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;
(b) To abolish, in law and in practice, public executions and other executions
carried out in the absence of respect for internationally recognized safeguards;
(c) To abolish, pursuant to its obligations under article 37 of the Convention
on the Rights of the Child6 and article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights,2 executions of persons who at the time of their offence were under
the age of 18;
(d) To abolish the use of stoning as a method of execution;
(e) To eliminate, in law and in practice, all forms of discrimination and other
human rights violations against women and girls;
(f) To eliminate, in law and in practice, all forms of discrimination and other
human rights violations against persons belonging to religious, ethnic, linguistic or
other minorities, recognized or otherwise, to refrain from monitoring individuals on
the basis of their religious beliefs, and to ensure that access of minorities to
education and employment is on par with that of all Iranians;
(g) To implement, inter alia, the 1996 report of the Special Rapporteur on
religious intolerance,7 which recommended ways in which the Islamic Republic of
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4 United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 500, No. 7310.
5 Ibid., vol. 596, No. 8638.
6 Ibid., vol. 1577, No. 27531.
7 See E/CN.4/1996/95/Add.2.
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Iran could emancipate the Baha’i community, and also to accord the seven Baha’i
leaders held since 2008 the due process of law rights they are constitutionally
guaranteed, including the right to adequate legal representation and the right to a
fair trial;
(h) To end the harassment, intimidation and persecution of political
opponents and human rights defenders, students, academics, journalists, other media
representatives, bloggers, clerics and lawyers, including by releasing persons
imprisoned arbitrarily or on the basis of their political views, including those
detained following the Presidential election of 12 June 2009;
(i) To uphold due process of law rights, to end impunity for human rights
violations, and to launch a credible, impartial and independent investigation into the allegations of post-Presidential election human rights violations;
5. Further calls upon the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to
redress its inadequate record of cooperation with international human rights
mechanisms by, inter alia, reporting pursuant to its obligations to the treaty bodies
of the instruments to which it is a party and cooperating fully with all international human rights mechanisms, and encourages the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to continue exploring cooperation on human rights and justice reform with the United Nations, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights;
6. Expresses deep concern that, despite the Islamic Republic of Iran’s
standing invitation to all thematic special procedures mandate holders, it has not
fulfilled any requests from those special mechanisms to visit the country in four
years and has not answered numerous communications from those special
mechanisms, and strongly urges the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to
fully cooperate with the special mechanisms, including facilitating their visits to its territory, so that credible and independent investigations of all allegations of human rights violations, particularly those arising since 12 June 2009, can be conducted;
7. Invites the thematic special procedures mandate holders to pay particular
attention to the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran, in particular the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to
freedom of opinion and expression, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of
human rights defenders, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Working
Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, with a view to investigating and
reporting on the various human rights violations that have arisen since 12 June
2009;
8. Requests the Secretary-General to report to it at its sixty-fifth session on
the progress made in the implementation of the present resolution;
9. Decides to continue its examination of the situation of human rights in
the Islamic Republic of Iran at its sixty-fifth session under the item entitled
“Promotion and protection of human rights”.
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