The international organization, which has more than 300 dead since September, has been asking for the authorities on Tuesday a moratorium on the death penalty.
mo12345lemonde with AFP
Iranian opponents face an ever more ferocious repression. The UN denounced Tuesday, November 22, the “hardening” of the regime’s response to demonstrations on Tuesday, November 22 and claimed from the authorities to impose an immediate moratorium on the death penalty.
“The UN Human Rights Head, Volker Türk, declares that the growing number of deaths due to the demonstrations in Iran, including those of two children this weekend, and the hardening of the response of Security Forces underline the critical situation in the country, “alerted the United Nations spokesperson Jeremy Laurence, during a regular press point in Geneva.
“We urgently ask the authorities to respond to the demands of the population in matters of equality, dignity and rights, instead of using unnecessary or disproportionate strength to repress manifestations,” he added While saying to regret that “the absence of an obligation to account for the blatant violations of human rights in Iran persists and contributes to growing grievances”.
more than 300 dead
These demonstrations were triggered by the death, on September 16, of Mahsa Amini, a young woman of 22, after her arrest for having violated the dress rules, very strict, inspired by Sharia law, which apply to women in the country. Since the start of the demonstrations, more than 300 people have been killed, including more than 40 children, according to the High Commission for Human Rights.
The NGO Iran Human Rights, based in Norway, reported an assessment of at least 378 people, including 47 children, killed during the repression of demonstrations. According to the High Commission, two 16-year-old boys are among the six people killed during the last weekend.
In total, “demonstrators were killed in twenty-five of the thirty-one Iranian provinces, including more than 100 in Sistan-et-Baloutchistan,” said the UN spokesman, who also recalls that the authorities Iranian women also argued that a number of security forces have been killed since the start of demonstrations. Thousands of people were arrested throughout the country for participating in peaceful demonstrations, according to the UN.
The High Commission calls for liberating “all those detained in connection with the exercise of their rights, including the Pacific Réunion right, and to abandon the charges held against them”, and it invites Iran to “Immediately impose a moratorium on the death penalty. “The international agency is particularly worried about the tightening of repression in Kurdish cities,” said Mr. Laurence.
The UN finally judges “particularly worrying” the refusal of the Iranian authorities to hand over the bodies of people killed to their families, “as well as the fact that they subordinate the delivery of bodies on the condition that families do not speak Not to the media or agree to give a false version of the cause of death “.
arrest of 40 foreigners in connection with the riots
Iranian justice announced Tuesday the arrest in two months of “40 foreigners” accused of involvement in the “riots” in Iran. The spokesperson for the judicial authority, Massoud Sétayechi, said neither their nationality, nor the moment, nor the place of their arrest.
At the beginning of October, the Iranian authorities had already confirmed the arrest of nine foreigners, from among others from Poland, Italy and France, and accused of link with the protest movement. According to the official Iranian agency Mizan Online, Mr. Sétayechi said that “verdicts against 2,432 people” accused of involvement in the “riots” had been pronounced so far in Iran. He did not detail the convictions, but the sentences pronounced for all these accused can be the subject of an appeal before the Supreme Court.