Larijani: Human Rights Claims Against the Islamic Republic Are a Political Move

According to the state news agency IRNA, Sadegh Amoli Larijani stated on Wednesday, November 21, that "human rights claims against the Islamic Republic of Iran are a broad political action and the West is creating a narrative with the help of its media empire." These remarks by the head of the judiciary come as Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said in an interview on Tuesday that the human rights situation in Iran during Hassan Rouhani's presidency is "as bad as" during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's time and in some cases "has even worsened." Ebadi further pointed to the increase in executions during Rouhani's term, noting that the average number of executions has been three per day. Larijani continued his remarks by describing the draft resolution presented by the Canadian government to the UN Human Rights Committee regarding the human rights situation in Iran as a "repetition" of the same issues raised in previous reports by the UN Secretary-General and the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran. He added, "It is regrettable that despite Iran's reasoned responses to previous reports, these claims are repeated." At this year's periodic review of human rights in Geneva, held every four and a half years, Mohammad Javad Larijani, the Secretary of Iran's Human Rights Headquarters, defended the Islamic Republic's human rights record for three hours on Friday, November 9. However, Simin Fahandj, a representative of the Baha'i community who attended the meeting, told Radio Farda that the attending countries do not believe the explanations provided by the Iranian representative. In this meeting, 108 countries presented 291 proposals to improve the human rights situation in Iran to the Iranian delegation and asked Tehran to commit to implementing them, but the Iranian delegation postponed the decision on accepting or rejecting the human rights proposals of 108 countries to March 2015. The proposals from the 108 countries included several issues such as "abolition of the death penalty for children, abolition of punishment for homosexuality, abolition of stoning, internet freedom, lifting press censorship, and expanding freedom of expression." Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, and Ahmed Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, expressed concern in their latest reports about the "increase" in the number of executions in Iran this year. According to Shaheed's report, at least 853 people were executed in Iran in the year ending June this year, eight of whom were under 18 at the time of their crimes. The head of Iran's judiciary emphasized, "We have no reason to ignore the right of the heirs for retribution when a 17-and-a-half-year-old commits a crime and is now 25 years old." Stopping the execution of individuals who committed crimes under the age of 18 and abolishing the death penalty were among the recommendations made at the 2010 periodic review of human rights. Amnesty International announced in November that the Islamic Republic of Iran had accepted a series of measures to improve the human rights situation in Iran at the 2010 Human Rights Council meeting, but has so far failed to implement its commitments.