ERBIL, Kurdistan Region -- Iran on Wednesday responded to a United Nations fact-finding mission that blasted human rights in the country, saying the mission is “politically motivated” and hypocritical as it should have focused on the riots in France instead.
The UN Human Rights Council in November formed an independent international fact-finding mission (FFM) to investigate and gather evidence regarding Iran’s alleged human rights violations, especially against women and children, during last September’s nationwide protests following the death of young Kurdish woman Zhina (Mahsa) Amini in morality police custody.
In response, Kazem Gharibabadi, vice-president of Iran’s judiciary authority and secretary general of its High Council for Human Rights, lashed out at the FFM and said that its establishment is an “unreasonable politically motivated action,” according to Iranian state media.
Gharibabadi argued that France’s usage of “extreme force against peaceful protestors” should instead have been the focus of the session and Paris of provoking the protests in Iran.
The FFM expressed concern over “specific risks of further deterioration of the human rights of those involved in the protests, including lawyers, journalists and human rights defenders, and in particular women and girls.”
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its paramilitary Basij led a violent crackdown against the protesters, killing hundreds of people and wounding thousands others. Tehran’s response to the demonstrations was heavily criticized by the international community.
The mission stated that Iran had sentenced at least 26 people to death in connection to the Amini protests since November, adding that seven men have already been executed. The body criticized the legal proceedings under which the death sentences were issued, describing them as “hasty” and lacking of transparency.
The FFM also decried the “unfulfilled” rights of Amini’s family to truth and justice around ten months following their daughter’s death, expressing concern that the investigations of Iranian authorities had fallen short of international human rights norms and standards.
Iran executed at least 576 people last year, a significant increase from 314 in 2021, making it the country with the second-highest rate of known executions during 2022, according to the annual report from Amnesty International.
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