Iran

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Grand Committee

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, I hope that next week’s Geneva meeting will cover Iran’s refusal to co-operate with the UN’s official human rights mechanisms and its rejection of the specific recommendations under Iran’s UPR, to which attention was drawn by a consortium of NGOs led by Human Rights Watch, as well as by the UN Secretary-General in his September report to the General Assembly. In turn, it expressed deep concern at,

“serious ongoing and recurring human rights violations”,

including torture, the persecution of human rights defenders,

“pervasive gender inequality and violence against women”,

discrimination against minorities and a dramatic increase in executions. Many were in public, ignoring international standards, still used stoning and suspension strangulation, and included victims under 18. The human rights high commissioner added her voice to the chorus last week, concentrating on the vicious treatment of the human rights defender, Nasrin Sotoudeh, and everyone associated with Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi’s centre for human rights.

The NGO consortium under Human Rights Watch wants the UN’s thematic special procedures, such as the rapporteur on executions, to report periodically to the UN Human Rights Council on matters that fall within its mandate. Iran has escaped detailed scrutiny by the SPs simply by ignoring requests for an invitation. Philip Alston, the retiring executions rapporteur, merely records that a request to visit remains outstanding, without even saying when it was originally made. Again, that has been the practice for all the SPs.

Iran holds the world record, as has been said, for the number of communications on executions. During the year under review, Mr Alston sent 63 letters to Iran, which failed to respond to 37 of them. He suggests that when a country has persistently poor levels of co-operation or engagement with the communications process, the Human Rights Council should demand an explanation. I hope that the Government support that. Otherwise, he suggests, the procedure, despite its significant cost, is not being taken seriously as a means of responding to violations.

I shall return to the other proposals made by the special rapporteur in Thursday’s human rights debate, when I shall also comment on the Secretary-General’s comments on Iran’s treatment of its Baha’i, Sufi, Baluch and Kurdish communities. For today, what ideas do the Government have for improving the means of dealing with the particular case of Iran at the United Nations? Does he agree that at least the rapporteur should produce country reports on the most egregious human rights violators without waiting for an invitation to visit, as has been the practice hereto?