Presenting his report to the Human Rights Council, Mr. Rehman mentioned that the “scale and gravity” of violations dedicated by Iranian authorities pointed to “the attainable fee of worldwide crimes, notably the crimes in opposition to humanity of homicide, imprisonment, enforced disappearances, torture, rape and sexual violence, and persecution”.

The skilled slammed “so-called” investigations of Ms. Amini’s dying that have been “neither credible nor clear”, underscoring that the perpetrators weren’t held accountable.

Ms. Amini’s dying was “not an remoted occasion”, he mentioned, however reasonably “the newest in an extended sequence of utmost violence in opposition to ladies and ladies dedicated by the Iranian authorities”.  

The report comes scorching on the heels of a assertion by a number of impartial UN-appointed rights consultants, together with Mr. Rehman, condemning the “deliberate poisoning of greater than 1,200 schoolgirls in Iran’s main cities” in gasoline assaults, and “the State’s failure to guard them”.  In his new report, Mr. Rehman underscored that these assaults have been “till lately denied by the Authorities”.

Particular Rapporteurs like Mr. Rehman, and different UN Human Rights Council-appointed rights consultants, work on a voluntary and unpaid foundation, are usually not UN employees, and work independently from any authorities or group.

Giant-scale repression

Turning to the repression with which the wave of protests was met by the Iranian authorities since final September, the skilled expressed outrage on the execution of at the least 4 individuals “after arbitrary, abstract, and sham trials marred by torture allegations”, and the sentencing to dying of an extra 17 individuals. Greater than 520 individuals, together with 71 kids, have been killed within the protests, and a whole bunch extra injured.

Portray an in depth image of the crackdown, Mr. Rehman mentioned that Iranian safety forces had fired reside ammunition at unarmed protesters, and that some protesters, together with kids, have been crushed to dying. He mentioned the authorities lately acknowledged that over 22,000 individuals had been arrested, amid an try and shut down “all avenues of freedom of expression”, by means of Web disruptions and social media censorship.  

Surge in executions and focusing on of minorities

The tragic occasions unfolding since 16 September have been going down in opposition to a backdrop of “exponentially growing” violations of human rights in Iran, Mr. Rehman mentioned. 2022 noticed the best variety of executions previously 5 years, together with an upsurge in executions of drug offenders and the continual execution of individuals sentenced to dying as kids.

The skilled additionally criticized the “disproportionate” use of the dying penalty in opposition to individuals belonging to ethnic and spiritual minorities in 2022. “Greater than half of the overall variety of individuals killed for the reason that begin of the protests are from the Baluchi and Kurdish-populated provinces”, he mentioned, noting that the Baha’i non secular minority remained “essentially the most severely persecuted”.

Official denials

Responding to the Particular Rapporteur’s feedback, Ali Bahreini, the Everlasting Consultant of Iran to the UN Workplace at Geneva, dismissed the report as “biased” and mentioned that the Council “ought to distance itself from politicization, stigmatization and stereotyping, which might solely create division and confrontation”. He mentioned that “all detainees besides those that have dedicated homicide and have personal complaints have been launched”.

Name for accountability

In his report, Mr. Rehman underscored an “absence of accountability on the home degree” in Iran and mentioned that he appeared ahead to cooperating with a newly-established worldwide mechanism “to make sure justice and accountability for victims of human rights violations”.

Assembly in a Particular Session final November, the Human Rights Council determined to ascertain an impartial worldwide fact-finding mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran, till the top of the fifty-fifth session of the Council going down in March 2024. The members of the fact-finding mission have been appointed on the finish of final 12 months.