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By Elahe Amani
 The Islamic Republic of Iran, in a
provocative act, has announced its candidacy for the
United Nation Human Rights Council,
a UN organization based in Geneva. The candidacy of Iran comes at a time that
during the last 10 months, Iranians are experiencing one of the darkest
periods of human rights violations since 1979 revolution. The candidacy of Iran
for the UN Human Rights Council is comparable to electing apartheid South Africa
to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination or
to awarding the US for humane treatment of detainee's right after the world was
shocked with pictures revealing sexual torture and humiliation of naked
prisoners.
The UN Human Rights
Council seats
are allocated by the regional groups, not by the level of their adherence to
human rights standards. The regional groups and the number of their seats are
African Group, 13 seats; Asian Group, 13 seats; Eastern European Group, 6 seats;
Latin American and Caribbean Group, 8 seats; and Western European and Others
Group, 7 seats. To be elected to a seat on the UNHRC for a three-year term, a
state must achieve the support of the majority of the members of the General
Assembly, i.e. at least 97 votes and council members may seek only one time
immediate re-election. While the US voted against the establishment of the UNHRC and boycotted
the Council during the Bush Administration, during his first year of presidency,
President Obama reversed the previous policy, joined the UNHRC, and proposed to reform it from
within by being "engaged" in the UN Human Rights Council.
The
current vacancy for the Asia Group is only four, with Iran, Malaysia, Maldives,
Qatar and Thailand having announced their candidacies. The winners will be chosen by secret
ballot within a UN body on May 13th.
While the four other contenders from
Asia group are not necessarily better qualified candidates and do not have a
significantly better human rights records, Iran's human rights violations
remains more dire in the three areas of death
penalty and torture, freedom of expression, & freedom of religion.
Iran's election to the United Nation Human Rights Council in 2010, the year during
which Iranians have endured heightened human rights violations by Iran's state
and non-state actors, will not only shatter the hopes of the Iranian people for
recognition and support from the global community in the struggle for civility,
rights, and dignity, but also compromises the credibility of UNHRC.
The United Nation Human Rights Council
(UNHRC) is a relatively new inter-governmental entity within
the UN System and is a subsidiary body of the
United
Nations General Assembly.
It
was established on March 15th, 2006 with an overwhelming vote of the
UN General Assembly to replace the dysfunctional, heavily criticized Human
Rights Commission. The hope was to build a more credible UN Human Rights entity
after the UN Human Rights Commission lost the respect of the global community.
The 47-nation
United Nation Human Rights Council replaced the 53-country UN Human Rights
Commission. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan welcomed what he called an "historic
resolution... that gives the United Nations a much-needed chance to make a new
beginning in its work for human rights around the world."
At
Iran's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in Geneva on February 15, 2010,
the head of Iran's delegation, Mohammad Javad Larijani, remorselessly
disregarded all the atrocities documented by human rights defenders,
journalists, NGOs, and credible human rights global organizations. He blatantly
rejected almost all the recommendations by other states for the remediation of
human rights violations in Iran. The Iranian proverb saying "daste
peesh migireh ke pas nayofteh" ( Instead of
admitting one's fault blame it on someone else or deceitfully dock the
responsibility) precisely sum up the strategy of Islamic
Republic of Iran in global and regional organizations.
In a world that aspires to uphold civility and respect
for human rights, one would expect that the election of new members to the UN
Human Rights Commission would involve the trust of member states to a given
country for carrying on the mission of Human Rights Commission. The key
question is: would Iran be able to carry the mission of UN Human Rights Council?
Would the consistent lack of respect for international bodies and
mechanisms deter other states from trusting Iran to further the goals of the
UNHRC or the regional politics of countries will open the door to membership of
Iran in UNHEC?
Since 2005, the human rights situation in Iran has dramatically
worsened.
In the aftermath of the
Iranian elections on June 12, 2009, the human rights situation has deteriorated
even further. Torture, rape,
systematic arrests, and imprisonment are usual occurrences. According to
Iranian Nobel Peace Laureate, Shirin Ebadi, Iran currently has the distinction
of having the world's highest per capita record of public hangings and
executions, with the number almost quadrupling since 2005. A
report published by Amnesty International on March 30th, 2010,
states that Iran accounts for 388 of at least 714 executions worldwide.
Amnesty International highlights in its 2009 Report that the Islamic Republic
is "one of a tiny minority of states where juvenile offenders continue to be
executed."
In February 2010, the United Nation Human Rights Council
condemned the "unjust suppression of innocent Iranian citizens"
following
last year's presidential elections. The execution of child offenders, the use
of death penalty against political opponents, the violence against women, the
discrimination and the lack of freedom of expression, as well as the prosecution
of religious and ethnic minorities, are among some of the gross violations of
human rights in Iran.
It should be noted that no United Nation Human Rights
Council official has visited Iran since 2005, with numerous requests from
special investigators remaining unanswered. In its annual review of human
rights practices around the world, Human Rights Watch (HRW) cited Iran as a
country that "openly harasses and arbitrarily detains human rights workers and
other critics." HRW documented violence against peaceful protesters, detention
of human rights defenders, as well as abuse and torture in Iran's illegal
detention centers.
For the Iranian people, it is disheartening to see
civility, rights, and dignity being used as a tool in the hands of states and
global forces to further their agendas; it is disheartening to see the
disconnect between the words and deeds, to see the states who claim the tall
order of taking stand against globalizations and militarization rendering
support to the Islamic Republic of Iran, a country with gross violations of
human rights. These states should vote objectively, hear the suppressed voice of
Iranian people, and not play deaf and blind to the grave violations of human
rights in Iran.
The history of UN human rights organizations
demonstrates that their ability to carry out the mandates and to promote and
protect all human rights depend overwhelmingly on the commitment of its members
to mission and goals of the organization. The election of 14 new members on May
13th 2010 provides an opportunity to ensure (within the existing
limitations i.e. lack of full adherence to the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights by any state) that only states that have demonstrated relatively more
commitment and effective action to protect human rights will be elected to the
vacant seats of the UNHRC.
Member states of UN General Assembly should set aside
the politics, particularly regional politics, from qualifying candidates for
membership in UNHRC and vote objectively based on the human rights record of the
candidates.
About the author: Staff journalist for
Women News
Network (WNN), Elahe Amani,
is director of Technology for Student Affairs at California State University.
She is also a 2007 Lillian Robles Award winner for her outstanding community
service, social education efforts and feminist activism and is co-chair of Women
Intercultural Network (WIN).
... Payvand News - 04/15/10 ... --
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