Amnesty International and the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) have criticized the Iranian regime for its treatment of civilians. AI warned Iran Sunday that the “Iranian authorities will make a farce” of the United Nations Committee hearing into Iran's human rights record “unless they acknowledge current and past abuses.” According to AI, the report Iran submitted on Sunday to the committee is a decade late. The last report received by them from the Iranian government was in 1993. “The Iranian authorities have already shown contempt for the Committee by submitting this report so late” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International's Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa. “They must now provide truthful answers to its questions and commit to providing a remedy to the many Iranians and their families who have suffered human rights violations”. The committee's job is to monitor how states comply with their obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. They will now consider how far Iran has upheld key rights within the convention, such as the right to life, freedom of expression, non-discrimination, the prohibition of torture and arbitrary detention, all issues which Iran has repeatedly violated. According to ANHRI the report submitted by Iran is tainted with inaccuracies and gives a severely distorted picture of its human rights record, failing to reflect serious and continuing abuses. Iran continues to impose the death penalty on juvenile offenders, an obvious lack of respect for the international human rights laws they agreed to. ANHRI goes further and calls Iran a serial human rights violator which executes hundreds of people each year. Iran has also accused women's rights activists and the Baha'I community of “contributing to public disorder, and has often persecuted members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. “It is shocking that the Iranian authorities are trying to imply that members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community do not have rights which are protected under the Covenant,” said Sahraoui. “It only highlights the degree of the authorities' blindness and bigotry against those who identify themselves outside the narrow confines of state-imposed gender norms.” The punishments dealt out by the Iranian authorities fro same sex relations include flogging and the death penalty.The Baha'i themselves are subject to frequent arrests and imprisonment with torture being dished out freely. Yet the Baha'i are not the only ones who are imprisoned for their faith. A Christian pastor by the name of Yousef Nadarkhani is awaiting the outcome of his retrial for apostasy. Nadarkhani was arrested for refusing to denounce his faith, and if his retrial fails, he will be given the death penalty. “Iran's appearance before the Human Rights Committee offers a small glimmer of hope to victims and their families,” said Sahraoui. “The country's authorities must begin to listen to them, and implementing the Committee's recommendations would be an important first step.” Sahraoui believes that Iran must do more than simply appear before the committee. According to her, Iran must allow all UN Special Rapporteurs to enter Iran to asses for themselves the extent in which human rights have been violated. Such a move would be a “welcome sign that the authorities are serious about their international engagement on human rights issues”, she said. Iran is known for having a dubious record on cooperation with the United Nation's human rights groups. Iran appeared in 2010 before the UN Human Rights Commission's Universal Periodic Review, and refused to acknowledge the severity of their human rights situation, despite the overwhelming evidence proving otherwise. BM
