|
|
7 May 1992
Doc. 6614
1403-7/5/92-11-E
MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION
on violations of, and departures from, human rights
principles in the Islamic Republic of Iran
presented by Mr FOURRÉ and others
1. In the first nine months of 1991 Amnesty International reported nearly 700 executions, most of them for drug trafficking offences, though the figure also includes 26 executions for political activities. The number of executions reported for the first seven months of 1991 is three times higher than the total figure for the corresponding period in 1990.
2. The special rapporteur of the Human Rights Committee of the Economic and Social Council, Mr Galindo Reynaldo, confirms the arbitrary arrests, the oppression to which the peaceful Baha'i minority is subjected and the general deterioration of the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic.
3. There have been an increasing number of attacks on opponents abroad, as is borne out by the recent assassination of Mr Kazem Rajavi in Geneva and the murder of three people in Paris. Only recently, the successors to the Ayatollah Khomeiny reiterated the death sentence on Salman Rushdie and encouraged their supporters to execute him, wherever he is.
4. Moreover, Iran has proved how little it cares about its international commitments. After agreeing to allow an international Red Cross delegation to visit, it refused to let it go to prisons and meet prisoners of its choice.
5. The representatives of the Islamic Republic have no hesitation in publicly recommending that prisoners and ordinary citizens be tortured, particularly by means of the widespread practice of whipping women in public. Several thousand women have been arrested for wearing the veil in a "non-standard" fashion. This makes them liable for 74 strokes of the whip.
6. Iran, with the support of the Iraqis, is endorsing a draft "Declaration of Human Rights in Islam". This "Declaration" dogmatically and systematically refers to the Sharia. It introduces intolerable discrimination against non-Moslems and women and confirms the legitimacy of corporal punishment. It is thus in complete contradiction to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
7. Iran, which has recovered its position as a regional power and is respected as such by our democratic regimes, is liable to use its new "international responsibility" as a pretext for violating human rights within its frontiers and promoting, abroad, its unacceptable conception of "Islamic" rights as set out in its declaration.
The recent appointment of an Iranian as Vice-Chairman of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights is an alarming example of the subtle change in approach.
8. The Assembly
i. publicly expresses its condemnation of the resurgence of serious human rights violations in the Islamic Republic of Iran;
ii. vehemently protests against the political assassinations of political refugees in Europe, which flout international law;
iii. demands that the Islamic Republic of Iran withdraw its death sentence on Salman Rushdie;
iv. asks the Islamic Republic of Iran to authorise representatives of the Red Cross and Amnesty International to visit the prisons and meet prisoners of their choice;
v. decides to appoint a rapporteur on the question of the "Islamic Declaration of Human Rights" so that its content can be assessed in the light of the 1948 Declaration.
Signed: FOURRÉ, JEAMBRUN, ALLONCLE, COLLETTE, SCOVACRICCHI, DHAILLE, WORMS, PISTRE, VIAL-MASSAT, MASSERET