The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) reported on September 4 that in a new report by Antonio Guterres, the United Nations Secretary General, issued at the 76th session of the UN General Assembly, it states that the human rights situation in Iran remains a serious concern under international human rights law.
In his report, Guterres pointed out that the ‘impediments to the rule of law and weak justice and accountability mechanisms’ have effectively given the officials in the Iranian regime impunity from their human rights abuses and persistent executions of dissidents, ethnic minorities and defenders of human rights.
The MEK said, “Among the executed are members of the Baluch, Kurdish, and Arab minorities, with many more prisoners have been sentenced to death on charges of moharebeh (enmity against God) and vague security charges that the regime often uses against minorities and dissidents.”
Guterres raised further concern over the regime’s executions of protesters in 2020, including the execution of wrestling champion Navid Afkari and Mostafa Salehi who were both arrested for taking part in protests against the regime, as well as the alarming number of executions of juvenile offenders. In his report Guterres said, “[The] application of the death penalty on child offenders constitutes a serious breach of international law.”
The MEK said, “The Secretary General’s report contains accounts of poor conditions in Iran’s prisons, crackdown on peaceful protests, and a corrupt judiciary system that provides impunity to regime authorities and deprives dissidents and activists of justice.”
One example stated in the report was the case of Maryam Akbari Monfared. She was sentenced to a 15-year sentence for her participation in protests in 2009. In her 12th year behind bars, she has experienced an increase in harassment and neglection of her medical issues as a result of her filing a formal complaint and trying to seek an investigation into the executions of her siblings and other political prisoners in 1988.
Following the report from the United Nations Secretary-General, Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said that the Iranian people and the Resistance are calling on the UN Security Council to prosecute the regime officials responsible for crimes against humanity that have taken place across Iran in the past four decades.
She said, “The Iranian regime is leading violator of human rights, the most active state sponsor of terror, and the foremost threat to peace and security in the world today. It must be subjected to international sanctions under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter.”
The MEK said, “The UN Secretary General’s report comes in tandem with another report by the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances that raises concern over the regime’s continued cover-up of the 1988 massacre of political prisoners.”
The report explains how the UN Working Group have expressed their concerns about the regime’s concealment of the many burial sites across Iran of the victims that were forcibly disappeared and ultimately executed in the summer of 1988, and states that they are calling for an international investigation into the matter.
