The International Committee for Justice Calls for Unlimited Access for the UN to Prisons in Iran

The International Committee for Justice, on the eve of Neda Youssef Al-Nashif's visit, the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights of the UN, sent a letter to Volker Turk, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, demanding "free and unlimited access to prisons" in Iran. The committee welcomed the Deputy High Commissioner's planned visit to Iran on February 3, stating that the purpose of this visit should be a mission to find the truth and ensure free access to political prisoners, meet with former prisoners who have been tortured, and engage with the families of those executed and killed during nationwide protests in Iran. The letter particularly emphasized the need for guaranteed visits to prisons in Iran, stating: "Without such a guarantee, we recommend caution regarding the potential propaganda misuse of this visit by the Iranian regime, as we have seen with past international missions in Tehran." The International Committee for Justice urged the Deputy High Commissioner to investigate several political prisoners, including Maryam Akbari Monfared, Saeed Masouri, Ali Mozi, and Mohammad Ghabadlou, as well as the recent report by Amnesty International regarding the sexual harassment of male and female prisoners. The letter emphasized that "these investigations are vital to ensure accountability and prevent the normalization of such heinous acts in Iranian prisons and require unlimited access to all prisons in Iran." Additionally, 25 human rights organizations had previously warned in a letter to Volker Turk and Neda Al-Nashif that Iranian officials would attempt to use Ms. Al-Nashif's visit to Iran as a propaganda tool to undermine human rights reports against the Islamic Republic. According to these human rights organizations, Iranian officials would try to use their formal interaction with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights "as a propaganda tool to weaken support for existing monitoring, reporting, and investigative mechanisms." They expressed doubts about the "specific outcome and benefit of a high-level visit to Tehran for advancing the human rights of the Iranian people" and considered the guarantee of access to independent civil activists and human rights defenders, "including those arbitrarily detained," as a condition for the success of this visit. The open letter reiterated that Neda Al-Nashif's visit occurs amid a concerning increase in executions in Iran. These human rights organizations also expressed concern that this visit takes place in a context where "the deadly, violent, and illegal repression of the nationwide movement for women, life, freedom, and the intensification of humiliating and discriminatory laws and policies target women and girls." The 25 human rights organizations pointed to two focal points, "executions" and "women's rights," in Neda Al-Nashif's mission and warned that Iranian officials "have shown no signs of political will to address these longstanding issues."