HRC - Press conference: UN Special Rapporteur on Iran 21 March 2023

The most serious human rights violations in the Islamic Republic of Iran over the past four decades have been committed since the death in police custody of Jina Mahsa Amini on 16 September 2022, including possible crimes against humanity, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran said today to media at the United Nations in Geneva.

“As I have documented in my report, there is evidence of serious violations of human rights, including murder, imprisonment and forced disappearances, torture, rape and sexual violence and persecution in the context of protests that began on 16th of September last year, as part of a systematic, widespread and state instigated policy”, said Mr. Javaid Rehman, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran. “And the scale of gravity of these crimes points to the possible commission of crimes against humanity,” he added.

Mr. Rehman presented his report yesterday to the UN Human Rights Council. The report followed a statement issued a few days before by several independent UN appointed rights experts, including Mr. Rehman, condemning the “deliberate poisoning of more than 1200 schoolgirls in Iran’s major cities and the State’s failure to protect them”. 

“I have asked the Iranian authorities to hold individuals accountable, both for the death of Jina Mahsa Amini, but also of the subsequent killing of all of these individuals that I've mentioned, 527- and I want accountability to be ensured,” said Mr. Rehman. None of the members of the morality police involved in the death of Ms. Amini has been held accountable, so Mr. Rehman.

“The issue of accountability is very significant. So I have been reporting, I have been documenting very serious violations of the rights of girls and women and the international community. And those victims are now anticipating that the international community would hold these perpetrators to account.” 

The claims of Iranian people of all ages, genders, ethnic, linguistic, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds to end the serious human rights violations, including gender-based violence and discrimination, “were met with brutal State violence”, so the report.

“526 people have been killed by state authorities, which includes 71 children. Hundreds remain severely injured, with some injuries deliberately inflicted by state authorities on girls and women on very sensitive parts of their bodies with a vindictive frame of mind to destroy and to damage them permanently,” said Mr. Rehman.

The report says that from the very first days of protest, State authorities have tried to shut down all venues of freedom of expression, and censoring social media platforms. Recently authorities recognize that over 22,000 people had been arrested.

“I noted in my report that thus far, Iranian authorities have executed four protesters after arbitrary summary and sham trials”, said Javaid Rehman, the Special Rapporteur on the Islamic Republic of Iran”. He added that “the purpose of these arbitrary and summary executions is to instill fear and to quash protests. At least 17 individuals are sentenced to death currently, and over 100 persons currently face charges that carry the death penalty. So that is the gravity of the situation that we are facing.” 

The UN Human Rights Council decided last November during a special session to establish an independent international fact-finding mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran until the end of the fifty-fifth session of the Human Rights Council in March 2024. The members of the fact-finding mission were appointed at the end of last year.

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