UN Human Rights Council must hold a special session on Iran

42 human rights organizations, including Hengaw, called for an urgent meeting of the UN Human Rights Council to establish an international investigation mechanism for the crimes committed by the Islamic Republic while also expressing their deep concern over gross violations of human rights during Iran's protests.

The complete statement is as follows:

We are writing to raise our deep concerns about the Iranian authorities’ mobilization of their well- honed machinery of repression to ruthlessly crackdown on current nationwide protests.

The United Nations Human Rights Council should act as a matter of urgency by holding a special session and -- given the gravity of crimes under international law and other serious human rights violations committed in Iran and the prevailing systemic impunity -- establish an independent,investigative, reporting and accountability mechanism.

The recent protests were sparked by outrage at the death in custody of Mahsa (Jina) Amini, a 22 year old woman from the Kurdish minority, on 16 September 2022 days after being arrested by the “morality” police for not complying with the country’s discriminatory and abusive compulsory veiling laws, which perpetuate violence against women and girls in Iranand strip them of their right todignity and bodily autonomy. The focus of the protests has since quickly expanded to broadergrievances and encompassed demands forfundamental political and social change towardsprotection and fulfilment of human rights.

Evidence gathered by a number of the undersigned organizations shows a harrowing pattern ofIranian security forces deliberately and unlawfully firing live ammunition and metal pellets, including birdshot, at protesters and bystanders including children. Undersigned organizations aredocumenting growing numbers of protesters and bystanders killed, with some already reportingover 200 deaths, including at least 23 identified children, in Sistan and Baluchistan, Kurdistan andother provinces throughout Iran, as well as hundreds of others injured to date in the ongoingcrackdown. The actual numbers, though, are likely to be much higher and growing. Since 18September 2022, over one thousand protesters, human rights defenders, civil society activists,journalists, university students and school children have been arbitrarily arrested and detained,some already charged with “actingagainst national security.” This cycle of deadly repression in thecontext of protests has become alarmingly familiar in recent years. During previous waves of massprotests including in December 2017-January 2018, November 2019, July 2021, November 2021and May 2022, a number of our organizations documented similar widespread patterns of crimesunder international law and other serious human rights violations, such as unlawful killingsresulting from unwarranted use of force, including lethal force, mass arbitrary arrests anddetention, enforced disappearances, torture and other ill-treatment, and sentencing individuals toengthy prison terms and death following grossly unfair trials.

Without concerted collective action by the international community that goes beyond statements ofcondemnation and long-standing calls directed at the Iranian authorities to conduct investigations,countless more men, women and children risk being killed, maimed, tortured, sexually assaultedand thrown behind bars, and evidence of grave crimes risks disappearing. The Iranian authoritieshave repeatedly ignored the calls of the UN Secretary General, the UN High Commissioner forHuman Rights, multiple UN Special Procedures, UN Member States and the UN GeneralAssembly to cease the unlawful use of force, including lethal force, against protesters andbystanders and to effectively investigate and prosecute those responsible for unlawful killings,torture and other ill-treatment. Simply put, all avenues for accountability are closed at the domesticlevel.

This latest round of bloodshed in the context of protests in Iran is rooted in and fueled by this deepand longstanding pattern of systemic impunity for the most serious crimes under international lawwhich, given the scale and severity of past and ongoing human rights violations, the UN HumanRights Council has not sufficiently addressed.

In this context, we urge the UN Human Rights Council to hold a special session as a matterof urgency. At that session, the Council should establish an independent mechanism withinvestigative, reporting and accountability functions to address the most serious crimesunder international law and other gross human rights violations committed in Iran,including in the context of successive waves of protest crackdowns. The mechanism shouldconduct investigations into such crimes and violations with a view to pursuing accountability, inparticular where violations may amount to the most serious crimes under international law. Themechanism should be mandated and adequately resourced to gather and preserve evidence, andto share it with national, regional and international courts and administrative bodies that may havejurisdiction over crimes. Its public reporting should include analysis of patterns of crimes andviolations and the identification of perpetrators.

A mechanism with such functions is urgently needed to complement the mandate of the UNSpecial Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, given the gravity and scale of thecrimes committed with absolute impunity in the country. The Special Rapporteur has underscoredthe urgency of “accountability with respect to long-standing emblematic events that have been metwith persistent impunity, including the enforced disappearances and summary and arbitraryexecutions of 1988 and the protests of November 2019.”

In his statement to the UN Third Committee in October 2021 and January 2022 report, the SpecialRapporteur has reflected on “the structural impediments for accountability” and the “lack of anyprogress or political will to conduct investigations, let alone ensure accountability.” The SpecialRapporteur has stressed that within Iran’s current “system of governance, it is clear that obtaining\accountability for human rights violations becomes arbitrary at best and impossible at worst” andemphasized that “it becomes imperative that the international community uses other existingchannels, including in international fora … to seek accountability…. Without the involvement of theinternational community, such grave violations will continue.”

Many family members of human rights defenders have been threatened while the human rightsdefenders have been violently arrested and their houses raided. Human rights defenders andvictims’ relatives are echoing growing frustration at the international community’s failure to takemeaningful action to address successive waves of protest killings in Iran. The father of MilanHaghigi, a 21-year-old man killed by security forces on 21 September, said: “People expect the UNto defend us and the protesters. I, too, can condemn , the whole world cancondemn them but to what end this condemnation?” Meaningful action by the internationalcommunity, in the form of the creation of an independent, investigative, reporting andaccountability mechanism, is long overdue.Signatories:

Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran
The Advocates for Human Rights
All Human Rights for All in Iran
Amnesty International
Article18
Article 19
Arseh Sevom
Association for the human rights of the Azerbaijani people in Iran (AHRAZ)
Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID)
Baloch Activist Campaign
Balochistan Human Rights Group (BHRG)
Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies
Center for Human Rights in Iran
Centre for Supporters of Human Rights
CIVICUS
Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort
FEMENA
Freedom from Torture
Front Line Defenders
Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Gulf Center for Human Rights
Haalvsh
Hengaw Organization for Human Rights
Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRA)
Human Rights Watch
Impact Iran
International Commission of Jurists
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
Iran Human Rights
Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC)
Justice for Iran
Kurdistan Human Rights Association-Geneva (KMMK-G)
Kurdistan Human Rights Network
Kurdpa Human Rights Organisation
League for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran
Miaan Group
Minority Rights Group International (MRG)
Rasank
Siamak Pouzand Foundation
6Rang (Iranian Lesbian and Transgender Network)
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
World Organisation against Torture (OMCT)