On the sidelines of the 43rd session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, five human rights NGOs with the UN consultative status issued a statement which was circulated among UN member states.
Five human rights NGOs, including a women’s rights association, have called for the formation of a UN Commission of Inquiry into the mass executions of political prisoners in 1988 and the ongoing human rights violations in Iranian prisons by the clerical regime, in a joint statement to Michelle Bachelet, the New United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The statement was submitted by the Nonviolent Radical Party, Transnational and Transparty, Women’s Human Rights International Association, Edmund Rice International Limited, non-governmental organizations in special consultative status, International Educational Development Inc., and 16 other human rights NGOs.
Excerpts from the statement by the human rights NGOs follow:
Thousands of people who took part in recent anti-government protests in the Islamic Republic of Iran are at serious risk of being secretly executed or tortured to death in the country’s prisons.
In the summer of 1988, the Iranian authorities massacred 30,000 political prisoners based on a fatwa by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini.
We therefore call on the Human Rights Council to set up a commission of inquiry into the 1988 massacre and achieve justice for the victims of that crime against humanity.
We urge High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet to support the launch of independent fact-finding missions into the 1988 massacre and the recent slaughter of anti-government protesters.
The human rights associations also pointed out the ill-treatment of those detained during the protests that took place in November 2019. About 1,500 people were killed, including 400 women.
Thousands of people who took part in recent anti-government protests in the Islamic Republic of Iran are at serious risk of being secretly executed or tortured to death in the country’s prisons.
More than two months after the crackdown began, the authorities have yet to provide any death toll for the protests.
More recently, some human rights groups have announced that as many as 12,000 protesters have been arrested. Iranian officials have threatened to execute detained protesters.
The Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran has compiled the names and reports on the list of women killed by security forces during the Iran uprising in November 2019. These names include at least four women with children, and three teenage girls under the age of 18, and one 3-year-old child.
