“Javaid Rehman, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran, publishes annual reports on the human rights situation in the country. Reviewing his recent report highlight how images of Iran’s human rights situation are disconnected from realities in the country. Instead, these representations are informed by news and media outlets acting against the interests of Iranians. Therefore, examining and debunking these instances of fake news, false reports, and unrealistic perceptions of Iran’s human rights situation is crucial. The present essay aims to offer a brief critique of this report from legal, economic, and social perspectives:
1- The countries that have voted in favor of this report are guilty of the same human rights violations as criticized by this report. Moreover, these countries are allies of the West, which pressures, intimidates, or otherwise entices them into voting for the report. By contrast, the independent governments have held a neutral or opposed position, raising doubts about the report’s objectivity.
2- The existing legal documents on human rights violations, such as execution, torture, and disappearance, are ill-founded, drawing on hearsay or demagogic internet websites that mainly act against the country and people of Iran by making political accusations and statistical fabrications.
3- It is true that the Islamic Republic of Iran is a member of numerous human rights conventions and treaties. However, international secular human rights laws mainly accept the standards of Islamic human rights, which the Iranian Constitution and Civil Code acknowledge. The said report ignores this subject.
4- The Special Rapporteur cleverly overlooks the extensive sanctions imposed by the United States of America and its Western allies in the last four decades, especially the recent round of sanctions levied after the USA unilaterally withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). These sanctions caused massive economic instability, unemployment, inflation, discrimination, riots, street protests, and widespread poverty. This attitude obviates the fact that Western countries have drafted human rights and created human rights institutions. Thus, they face a theoretical and practical double standard regarding human rights not only with Iran but with many opposing countries. Admittedly some human rights violations have to do with the political, legal, and executive weaknesses in the Iranian political system, shared by most countries in the world, notably the developing countries of the global South. However, the long-term economic, social, cultural, and economic consequences of sanctions against Iran by Western countries based on ill-founded political claims effectively give rise to persistent causes of human rights violations, upon which Iran wields no control. This portion of the human rights abuse relates to the actions of human rights authors and advocates deliberately ignored by the report.
5- Most of what the Special Rapporteur has cited as cases of human rights violations, such as public protests, street riots, injustice, discrimination, poverty, and unemployment, come from war and brutal sanctions of Iran , pioneered by the great powers, notably the United States of America. The human rights Special Rapporteur overlooks the origins of these phenomena, exclusively mentioning them in passing. Impartiality, one of the minimum requirements for United Nations reports, would necessitate pointing out and explaining such cases, brushed aside by the report. This issue is not limited to Iran. Widespread human rights abuse can also be observed in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan, primarily due to war and military campaigns of great powers in these countries over the last few decades. International organizations usually gloss over or downplay the role of the aggressor powers, instead attributing human rights violations to specious domestic factors. These examples bring to light the data inaccuracy, the lack of impartiality in reporting, and the use of human rights as a tool to achieve the political goals of the vested interests behind such reports.
6- The report mentions the lack of adequate facilities for the prisoners, inadequate health services, and insufficient space. Why does the report fail to mention the drop in the government’s revenue due to war and economic sanctions? In addition, are these facilities not at the same level as those of comparable Southern governments? The question is how the Special Rapporteur addresses these issues without comparing the current conditions of Iran with other governments. Meanwhile, Iran has under sanctions imposed by the same states that purport to advocate human rights, and as stated, a portion of the shortcomings are the results of these sanctions against Iran.
7- It is questionable whether the cases of human rights violations caused by poverty line, inflation, unemployment, and environmental degradation are restricted to the Iranian government or apply to most countries in the region, which can thereby be accused of human rights abuse. Do the West allies, such as Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia, not have the same conditions? Why are such human rights reports not prepared and published about them? Similarly, why does the UN treat the countries in the region with a double standard?
8- The Special Rapporteur brings up the issue of Corona, vaccination problems, the growth rate of disease, and the resulting death toll in Iran. Did not other countries, especially developed countries, face such problems when the pandemic broke out in the world? Why are their weaknesses and shortcomings not raised as human rights violations? In addition to sanctions, domestic vaccine production, and efforts to prevent the virus’s spread, Iran has actually set a world record for itself. Interestingly, the Corona death rates were higher in countries comparable to Iran and even higher in developed Western nations. However, the Special Rapporteur also ignores this accomplishment.
9- All countries, even France and the US holding the banner of human rights, deal harshly with crimes against national security. Strangely, Iran’s handling of these criminals is framed as human rights abuse. This double standard once again questions the impartiality of Javaid Rehman’s report.
10- Javaid Rehman lists some suggestions, such as the separation of power, supervision of the political power by parties and unions, and genuine independence of three powers to counter human rights violations. All of these topics merit extensive discussion. In response to his claim, one should mention that these arrangements hold in Iran to the extent that political, economic, social, and cultural conditions allow. Thus, there is no need for the human rights Special Rapporteur to provide an arbitrary blueprint to transform the government’s structure. Another question is whether or not the United Nations Charter forbids its institutions and agents from interfering in the domestic affairs of the member states, inherently related to their national domain of governance. Why do the Special Rapporteur and his organization, operating under the aegis of the UN, act illegally beyond their mandate? How do they deal with the Western countries, such as the US, France, or Israel, repeatedly accused of human rights violations? Do they frequently release such reports against them? Indeed, is this request motivated by a malicious political, instead of a legal, purpose?
11- Accusations against the independence of the judiciary and consequently human rights violations in Iran and claims to the effect that the direct election of the head of the judiciary and the indirect election of its judges by the leader of the Islamic Republic are ill-founded. A similar process exists in many Western political systems. However, they do not face such accusations. The Constitution of every country, in which the fundamental rights of every nation are formulated and approved by the direct vote of the people, specifies the necessary process for safeguarding people’s rights. The Iranian Constitution also formulates such a process. Does the human rights Special Rapporteur go to war with the accepted Constitutional rights of a nation as defending human rights? This issue is also one of the hidden legal-political contradictions in this report.
Dr. Mohammad Ali Basiri,
A faculty member of the political science and international relations department,
University of Isfahan