The UN Human Rights Committee adopted on Tuesday a resolutions strongly condemning Iran’s human rights record.
The non-binding measures now go to the full assembly for a vote expected next month. As to Iran’s rights record, 78 countries endorsed the resolution, 35 voted against while 69 abstained.
The Canada-drafted resolution was approved less than a week before a Nov. 24 deadline for Iran and six world powers to reach a deal on its nuclear program, but the word ‘nuclear’ isn’t mentioned in the text.
The resolution pointed to the surge in the use of the death penalty in Iran, with at least 850 people executed in the past 15 months.
The draft called on Iran to stop “torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including flogging and amputations.”
Freedom of expression and assembly should be given to all Iranians regardless of their ethnic or linguistic background. It criticized “continued discrimination and human rights violations against Arabs, Azeris, Balochis, Kurds and their defenders.”
The “pervasive gender inequality and violence against women and discrimination,” the resolution also criticized. The UN special investigator, Ahmed Shaheed, last month spoke out against Iran’s second-highest rate of executions in the world. Iran has executed eight juveniles over the past year, he said.
Rojhelat.info
