Iranian regime envoy chairs UN meeting, lawmakers call moves an insult to the people

Iranian legislators, human rights experts, representatives of nongovernmental organizations and dissidents have strongly condemned allowing the Iranian regime's envoy to chair a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council's Social Forum, calling the move an affront to the Iranian people whose human rights have been violated by the ruling regime.

This came during a press conference held in Geneva, with the participation of Mr. Jean-Pierre Brard, member of the French National Assembly, Antonio Stango, President of the Union for Human Rights in Italy, Taher Boumedra, former representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for human rights in Iraq, Ms. Saphora Sadidi, whose father and six other members of her family were martyred by the Iranian regime, and Mr. Behzad Naziri, representative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran in international organizations.

"Allowing the envoy of the Iranian regime to chair the meeting of the Social Forum of the Human Rights Council shows the weakness of the United Nations system, which allows repressive regimes such as the one in Iran to chair their various bodies, which flouts the international order and the principles of the United Nations," Mr. Stango said in a speech at the conference.

For his part, Mr. Brard strongly criticized what he described as "appeasement by Western countries of the Iranian regime," and likened granting the presidency of the UNHCR and providing $6 billion to the Iranian regime to handing over billions to the U.S. Federal Reserve to the Al Capone family (who lead mafia gangs), and explained: "The Iranian regime rejects international human rights law, and says so publicly, and despite repeated calls by the United Nations to improve the human rights situation, the regime does the opposite, ignoring the demands of the international community."

"It is regrettable that the Iranian envoy today chaired a meeting of the Human Rights Council, this shameful decision is an insult to the Iranian people, whose human rights have been flagrantly violated by the regime over the past 44 years, and mocks the principles on which the United Nations was founded," said Mr. Taher Boumedra.

Ms. Savora Sadidi, spokesperson for the families of victims of human rights violations committed by the Iranian regime, said: "This step has alarmed us because despite its behavior in the past four decades, we can now see, at this very moment, that the Iranian regime is the main source of crises in the Middle East. Not only does it enable the regime to continue exporting terrorism beyond Iran's borders."

"This decision, criticized in 69 resolutions for the regime's gross and systematic human rights violations, the execution of more than 600 people in the first ten months of 2023 and the killing of 750 protesters during the 2022 uprising and another 1,500 during the 2019 uprising, was inexplicable, shameful and undermines the very values that the United Nations is mandated to protect, promote and support," said Mr. Naziri in a speech at the conference.

"Allowing the regime that committed the 1988 massacre, daily executions and incitement to war to seize a prestigious UN platform is a dagger at the heart of human rights, fuels terrorism and endangers regional and global peace.

In the context of the storm of heavy criticism of the United Nations for adopting this resolution, which embarrassed it, 180 human rights experts, jurists, judges, Nobel laureates and NGOs sent a letter to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, in which they stated: "This step is a black stain on the history of the United Nations."

While noting that "senior Iranian officials, including President Ebrahim Raisi, must be held accountable for the massacre of the summer of 1988 that killed some 30,000 political prisoners, the vast majority of whom are members of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran," the letter explained: "The mullahs' regime's assumption of the chairmanship of the meeting of the Social Forum of the Human Rights Council will be seen by the mullahs' regime as a green light for further torture and murder and will assure its repressive forces that they will not be held accountable for their crimes."

Iranian rebels also plan to hold a march near the United Nations headquarters tomorrow to condemn the move and call for the regime's leader to be held accountable for four decades of crimes against humanity.

The wave of international condemnation of the presidency of the mullahs' regime The Social Forum of the United Nations Human Rights Council

In a statement addressed to the United Nations, more than 110 NGOs, human rights figures, prominent judges and Nobel laureates condemned the chairmanship of the Iranian regime's representative of the two-day Social Forum of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The statement was signed by Professor José Luis Decruz, former President of the Court of First Instance of the European Communities, Professor Walpreshoca, Professor Franklin Dehus, Sir David Edward, Judges of the European Court of Justice, and Professor Rowan Williams, former President of the European Court of Justice, Bishop of Canterbury.

Jody Williams, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Professor Michel Muir, Professor Sheldon Glashow, Professor Barry C. Parish, Nobel laureates in physics, Alfred Gelink, Nobel laureate in literature, Professor Finn A. Kidland laureate of the Nobel Prize in Economics, and Sir Richard Roberts, Nobel laureate in medicine, are among the signatories of this statement.

In a statement issued on November 1, 2023, more than 110 NGOs, human rights defenders, prominent judges and Nobel laureates stressed the need to punish senior officials of the Iranian regime, including its president, Ebrahim Raisi, for their crimes. The massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in 1988, the vast majority of whom were MEK.

This platform is dedicated to the Iranian regime, which, in addition to its brutal human rights violations, plays the largest role in setting fires in the Middle East, which have killed and displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians on both sides these days.

The assumption by a terrible regime of the United Nations is a dagger at the heart of human rights because of the 1988 massacre, daily executions and the incitement of wars, fueling terrorism and endangering peace in the region and the world.

The regime's leadership of the United Nations Human Rights Foundation strongly tramples the principles for which the United Nations was formed and modern humanity has sacrificed millions to achieve, and it will be a dark spot in the history of the United Nations.

The United Nations has condemned this regime in 69 resolutions for its brutal and systematic violation of human rights, executing more than 600 people in the first ten months of 2023, 750 people killed in the 2022 uprising, and 1,500 people in the 2019 uprising.

On 24 November 2022, the Human Rights Council established an international commission of inquiry to investigate the regime's apparent violations in the 2022 uprising. The United Nations General Assembly condemned the brutal and systematic violation of human rights in Iran on 15 December 2022.

On December 14, 2022, the Iranian regime was expelled from the UN Women's Committee for its appalling human rights record.

The human rights figures said in their statement: The appointment of a representative of this regime as head of the Social Forum of the Human Rights Council is interpreted by this regime as a green light for more torture and killing, and gives reassurances to the repressive forces that they will not be held accountable for their crimes.

The signatories asked representatives of all democratic countries and all human rights defenders to object to the chairmanship of the representative of such a regime in the United Nations human rights institution and to refrain from attending such a meeting.

The Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran announced on May 11, 2023 that the appointment of the ambassador of religious fascism as President of the Social Forum in Geneva on the first and second days of November 2023 AD was a mockery of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international conventions and stressed that the system of execution and massacres in Iran is the largest violator of human rights in the modern era

The secretariat of the National Council of Resistance pointed out that: By citing such conciliatory measures, the regime reassures the guards and executioners to continue their crimes.

The Iranian Resistance, while requesting the immediate revocation of this appointment, stressed in its statement that such appointments are a reward for criminals against humanity and trample on the human values that contemporary humanity has made many sacrifices to achieve.

Iranian prisoner risks her life to reveal terrifying conditions in notorious prison

A courageous Iranian political prisoner risked her life to share with the world the deplorable and often tortured conditions inside the regime's notorious women's prison.

Farida, a 25-year-old university student, was imprisoned for more than a year in Qargag – a notorious prisoner originally built to house livestock in Varamin, about 40 miles south of Tehran.

SAN interview with a member of the resistance units

Farida told San newspaper how she was arrested after she wrote some slogans against the current regime in the country.

Farida, a member of the People's Mojahedin of Iran (MEK), said she was denied a fair trial, tortured, beaten, interrogated and placed in solitary confinement before being placed in a filthy public cell in Qarjak.

Human rights groups and Iranian dissidents have previously told SAN that the prison is riddled with disease, poor sanitation, torture, murder and rape.

Farida said the female prisoners were crammed side by side with no way to lie down or sleep, and there was so much sewage and bad air that it was difficult to breathe.

The 25-year-old, who has just been released, told SAN in an exclusive interview: "It is very difficult to explain the situation in the mullahs' prisons. I have been in Qarjak prison for more than a year."

"The main problem in this prison was overcrowding in the wards, which made breathing difficult.

"The health situation was out of the question. Dirty cells and toilets have limited access to toilets and bathrooms, a method of torturing prisoners. "The public wards were full of female prisoners, there was not enough space to sleep, and the prisoners had to sit next to each other for several days and could not lie down to rest.

"We had to sit during the day, and there weren't enough beds."

For the first few months before her transfer to Qarchak prison, she was held in solitary confinement in one of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security detention facilities.

"I was interrogated every few days, and they asked me to confess to my activities with the MEK," she said. And I didn't. I knew that if I agreed, I would face much worse consequences."

"I was beaten many times, and the psychological torture of not knowing your fate and always being forgotten was the worst of it.

"But they failed to break my will, and this is the case with the large number of female protesters who were arrested after the September 2022 uprising.

"Even when I was transferred from solitary confinement to the general wing of Qarjak prison, they didn't allow me to contact my family or friends for a while.

"In the public ward, I learned about the stories of women who went through much worse situations."

Farida described the case of an assaulted woman who attempted suicide, but guards "ignored her pleas" and refused to take her to the prison clinic.

"There was psychological and physical torture, especially of political prisoners, all the time," she said. They brutalize female prisoners. As I mentioned, there was this prisoner who tried to commit suicide, and the guards didn't pay attention to her.

"There are no human rights in Iran, especially in prisons under the mullahs." After last year's protests, many people were arrested." In one case, a journalist was arrested for exposing the violent treatment of detainees by security forces by female Iranian Guard agents. They wore black chador, uniforms and black masks. "Many have insulted, humiliated and brutalized young women and girls, and moved them to an unknown location." Farida was arrested after participating in MEK resistance activities, where she wrote slogans on a runway in Tehran. "I didn't get a fair trial," she said.

"They don't even allow my family to appear in court. They judge me by what I say in the interrogation." In one case, another university student arrested during a demonstration in Tehran last year was sentenced to six years in prison and 74 lashes.

Farida said the crimes for which she and other female prisoners were imprisoned were "very different" from the free world. She said women are imprisoned for "refusing the dress code imposed by the regime, resisting the brazen behavior of the morality police, and in political cases, participating in any activities considered a protest against their rule." "Women accused of propaganda against the state or belonging to the MEK will face no mercy through the process they go through when arrested." In Qarjak, the cellmate who was imprisoned in the women's ward of Evin prison was transferred to Guard Intelligence Wing No. 2A on October 5, 2019." She was sentenced to 16 years in prison for her leadership role in the demonstration and communication with the MEK. Farida also spoke about the case of a prominent teacher who was detained and left in limbo for several months in Qarjak prison.

"Security forces arrested her in May 2023, during a teachers' protest in Tehran, but until she went on hunger strike, she did nothing," she said.

"A lot of crimes happen in prisons, but no one cares about them.

"A lot of people are now in prison in difficult situations, and this system is torturing them, I want you to think about them and put yourself in their shoes.

"This fundamentalist regime must be overthrown in order to achieve human rights, peace in the world and stop the war."

The women-led MEK is the largest opposition group to the Iranian regime with members inside Iran and around the world.

Farida explained why she and many other young Iranians stood up to the mullahs.

"Despite last year's severe crackdown on protesters and the arrest of thousands of resistance units, countless individuals, including girls and boys, are actively braving the atmosphere of terror."

"In anticipation of another uprising, the ruling clerics stepped up executions and repressive measures to intimidate people, especially young people and students.

"However, we stand against them, tear down their banners, burn regime symbols, and mobilize protests, as we did in Tehran and other cities on the anniversary of last year's uprising last month."

She said she had urged governments in the UK, the US and across the West to abandon their current policy of "appeasement" Iran and support those who resist dictatorship instead.

"The failed policy of appeasement has led to internal repression and the spread of terrorism and extremism.

"No government should mistreat its citizens as the mullahs do. The international community must resolutely oppose the mullahs, blacklist the IRGC (the main repressive force), and support the Iranian people and their resistance.

"Recognizing our right to self-defense and resistance is the way to achieve freedom and democracy in Iran and peace in the region," she said.