Convention of the Rights of the Child perishes under the Iran regime rule 

By Ali Latifi  

In 1959 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. Iran regime signed the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1991 and ratified it in 1994.  Aware of the fact that any rights are in contradiction to its fundamentalist notion, upon ratification, Iran regime made a decisive precautionary reservation saying:

“If the text of the Convention is or becomes incompatible with the domestic laws and Islamic standards at any time or in any case, the Government of the Islamic Republic shall not abide by it.”

Since then, although Iran is bound by the Convention under international law, international human rights organizations and foreign governments have consistently criticized it for failing to uphold its obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Iran regime has hit the international record of being condemned by international human rights organizations. On Nov. 17, 2018, the United Nation General Assembly’s 3rd committee adopted a draft resolution that condemned the Iranian regime for its blatant human rights violations. This was the 65th time that the Iranian regime was being called off for its gross human rights violations at the international level, particularly when it comes to the violation of children’s rights.

Particularly, violation of convention of the Rights of the Child under the clerical regime in Iran is appalling.

Violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in the regime’s penal code is institutionalized:

According to several independent international bodies including the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran and Amnesty International, in general, Iran regime is the leading state in number of executions per capita, only second to China in terms of figures, and particularly, is in top in the number of executions of minors and juvenile and violating the convention of the Rights of the Child. Amnesty International has recorded the execution of 97 individuals in Iran who were under the age of 18 at the time of the crime between 1990 and 2018. More than 90 others remain at risk of execution.

On April 29, 2019, Amnesty International announced that two 17-year-old boys, convicted of rape charges following an unfair trial, were flogged and secretly executed in Iran, while the use of the death penalty against people who were under 18 at the time of the crime is strictly prohibited under international human rights law and is a flagrant assault on the convention of the Rights of the Child.

The US state department said it was “appalled” by the reports and called it “unacceptable”.  The US state department emphasized continuing to shine the light on the regime and asked others to join them in holding Iran’s corrupt leaders accountable for their crimes.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Michelle Bachelet, condemned the execution of two 17-year-old boys in Iran and called it “deplorable.”

The regime carries out merciless outlaw verdicts against juveniles while the regimes’ affiliated corrupt figures enjoy apparent impunity. In 2018, the scandal of acquittal of the well-known Quran reciter Mohammad Gandomzadeh Toosi (Saeed Toosi) over charges of involving the sexual abuse of minors, by the order of the office of the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, incited outrage among the Iranian society.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), referred to the secret flogging and executions of two 17-year-old men in Shiraz, announced by Amnesty International, as a “shocking crime violating Human Rights and against all humanitarian and Islamic principles and standards”.

Mrs. Rajavi stated that unannounced arrests and secret executions are a well-known practice of the clerical regime in Iran and a product of Khamenei’s Judiciary, headed by the murderous cleric, Ebrahim Raisi, a death committee member in charge of the massacre of political prisoners in 1988.

Regarding the appalling violation of the convention of the rights of the child, Mrs. Rajavi called on the civilized world, UN, UNSC, and UN Human Rights Council to condemn the atrocious killing of juveniles in Iran.

Ali Latifi: human rights activist and political analyst on Iran and the Middle East.