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A Call by Dr. Shirin Ebadi Nobel Peace Laureate \u2028and 25 civil society Organizations
\n\u201cThe Islamic Republic of Iran has issued a \u2018standing invitation\u2019 to the special procedures\u2028but has repeatedly failed to respond to my requests that dates for a visit be set, despite an oral\u2028exchange during the third session of the Council, several high-level meetings and an extensive\u2028correspondence\u201d.<\/p>\n
Philip Alston, 29 January 2007
\nWe, the members of civil society – located inside and outside of Iran – call upon the members of the UN Human Rights Council to renew and strengthen the mandate of Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran.\u2028The interim report submitted to the UN General Assembly (A\/66\/374) and the reports to the Human Rights Council (A\/HRC\/19\/66) submitted by Dr. Shaheed on 19 October 2011 and 12 March 2012, respectively, demonstrate that the international community\u2019s concern about the deteriorating human rights situation in the country is not unwarranted.
\nAt a time when the number of executions, which are frequently summary and at times performed in secret, is soaring in Iran and discrimination and violence against religious, ethnic minorities, women, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people amongst other groups is ongoing, monitoring and reporting conducted by an impartial and independent investigator such as the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran is urgent and vital.
\nWe draw the attention of the UN Member States to the fact that despite its standing invitation, no Special Procedure has had substantive access to Iran.\u00a0 This history speaks volumes about the government\u2019s willingness to cooperate with the UN human rights machinery, which is according to the former Special Rapporteur Philip Alston necessary to \u201chaving a noticeable or durable impact on the human rights situation\u201d.
\nWe call the UN Member States to consider this history of cooperation and do not support a \u201cdivide and conquer\u201d strategy that may evolve from Iran\u2019s recent announcement to invite two Special Procedures to the country within a year. By inviting a thematic mandate holder, which lacks the resources for sustained monitoring, Iran may justify a lack of cooperation with the Special Rapporteur appointed to provide for continuous monitoring and reporting of the human rights situation.
\nWe believe that any visit from a thematic mandate holder prior to an initial visit by a country-specific mandate holder establishes a dangerous institutional and political precedent for all Special Procedures; especially for the ten existing country specific mandate holders. \u00a0\u2028Over the years, the United Nations\u2019 General Assembly has adopted multiple resolutions expressing concerns at \u201cthe lack of continuity in the cooperation of the Government with the mechanisms of the Commission on Human Rights\u201d, and the denial of access to the Special Representative (see for example 23 December 1994, 12 December 1997, and 26 February 2002).
\nThe history of the Islamic Republic\u2019s relationship with the UN human rights bodies underlines the fact that without the vigilance of the international human rights community, there are no significant improvements of the human rights situation in Iran.
\nIn 1995, the Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance visited Iran. Despite the ongoing and increasing persecution of religious minorities in the following years, no thematic mandate holder has been given access to investigate and report since 1995.
\nIn 2003, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention visited Iran at the invitation of the Iranian government. From December 1st 2007 to November 30th 2008, however, Iran received the highest number of urgent appeals (19) from the Working Group. In the past few years, the crackdown on civil society has led to the imprisonment across the country and flight into exile of hundreds of civil society members.
\nIn 2005, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women visited Iran at the invitation of the government of Iran. In 2007, however, she reported the persecution of \u201ccampaigners\u201d collecting signatures \u201cfrom Iranians demanding the revision and reform of current laws which discriminate against women\u201d.\u00a0 The Iranian authorities responded to only 3 of the 18 communications sent to them regarding 70 human rights defenders. \u2028While every effort to encourage and facilitate cooperation with the Special Procedures should be undertaken by all stakeholders, this should not be done at the expense of efforts to ensure cooperation with the country specific mandate holder and meaningful accountability to the human rights mechanisms.
\nThe renewal of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran is an urgent necessity as the underlying circumstances that warrant the country-specific mechanism remain unchanged. We therefore urge you to renew Dr Ahmed Shaheed\u2019s mandate on the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran. \u2028\u2028Dr. Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate\u2028And: \u20281.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation\u20282.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Ahwazi human Rights organization \u20283.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Association for Defense of Azerbaijani Political Prisoners in Iran\u20284.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Baluchistan human rights organization\u20285.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (ECPM)\u20286.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Education\/Tavaana: E-Learning Institute for Iranian Civil Society\u20287.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Human Rights Activists for Democracy in Iran\u20288.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0HIVOS (Netherlands)\u20289.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Human Rights (Kurdish)\u202810.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission\u202811.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0International Coalition Against Violence in Iran (ICAVI)\u202812.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0International Solidarity with the Mothers of Laleh Park in Iran\u202813.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Iran Human Rights\u202814.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Iran Human Rights Documentation Center\u202815.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Iranian Lesbian Network (6Rang)\u202816.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Justice For Iran (JFI) \u202817.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Madeye 18 (Article 18) – Iranian Christians for Religious Freedom\u202818.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Mothers of Laleh Park in Iran \u202819.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0One World (Czech Republic)\u202820.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0People in Need (Czech Republic)\u202821.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Persian Gay and Lesbian Organization\u202822.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 Stop Child executions (Canada)\u202823.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0The Committee for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran-Austria\u202824.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Women’s Living Under Muslim Laws \u202825.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Zagros center for democracy and Human Rights<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Call by Dr. Shirin Ebadi Nobel Peace Laureate \u2028and 25 civil society Organizations \u201cThe Islamic Republic of Iran has issued a \u2018standing invitation\u2019 to the special procedures\u2028but has repeatedly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=168"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":170,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions\/170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}