UN Rapporteur Wants Prosecutions Over Iran Human Rights
In an Iran International interview Javaid Rehman has outlined his plans for a UN probe into an “unprecedented level of violence and state brutality in Iran.”
In an Iran International interview Javaid Rehman has outlined his plans for a UN probe into an “unprecedented level of violence and state brutality in Iran.”
Rehman, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, said the “independent and international” fact-finding mission established by a UN Human Rights Council vote November 24 would focus on Iran’s high number of executions, including drug offenders, “the killing of children and ethnic minorities,” and establishing accountability of individuals.
Rahman said 21 people involved in protests had been indicted on crimes carrying the death sentence, and at least “15,000 protestors arrested.” He applauded the Human Rights Council for “listening to the Iranian people,” and explained that he would be working very closely with the investigation given his “expertise and knowledge.” Rehman, a Pakistani-British legal scholar based in London, has been special rapporteur since 2018 but, unlike a UN special rapporteur on the human-rights consequences of sanctions, has not been allowed to visit Iran.
The UN mission, which reportedly will have a $3.67 million budget and 15 staff, would collect and preserve evidence for future prosecutions, dismissing “mis-information” and using the experience of members, Rahman said. He envisaged a detailed report by February-March 2024 for the council’s 55th session.
Accountability for human rights violations would come, he told Iran International, through “future legal proceedings” in international courts and through cases in national courts on the principle of universal jurisdiction. “These individuals better be careful because we are going to hold them accountable in courts of law,” he said.
National courts have been generally reluctant to apply universal jurisdiction, with the United States among those world powers most resistant to the principle. In recent instances a Swedish court in July sentenced to life imprisonment Hamid Nouri, a former Iranian official, over 1988 prison executions, and in January a German court jailed for life Anwar Raslan, a former Syrian intelligence office, for murder and rape of prisoners in Damascus. Rahman did not explain any potential role of the International Criminal Court, which has generally indicted Africans and which the US has refused to join, insisting for example it has no jurisdiction over US troops in Afghanistan.
‘Key principles’
In his interview with Iran International’s TV correspondent and host Sima Sabet, Rehman criticized the Iranian constitution, which he said “violates democratic norms, violates key principles of constitutionalism,” including a lack of separation of powers. He called the judiciary’s role “problematic” and said one of his “big concerns” was women being excluded from “serious political positions.”
Looking ahead to the work of the UN mission, the special rapporteur welcomed submissions from victims of violence, and also from journalists and their families receiving threats “in the UK, European and north American countries.”
“That is what the Islamic Republic is all about,” Rehman said. “It wants fear to be spread…The Islamic Republic of Iran wants a complete blackout of the news.” Rehman encouraged Iran International to “continue your excellent work.” He noted that in contacts with Iranian officials, they had accused him of “talking to terrorists” and “not being objective.”
According to the official news website of the judiciary, Mizan Online, the four Iranians, identified as Hossein Ordoukhanzadeh, Shaahin Imani Mahmoudabad, Milad Ashrafi Atbatan, and Manouchehr Shahbandi Bojandi, were hanged early on Sunday. Ordoukhanzadeh – the alleged main link with Mossad – had been imprisoned in Greece between 2014 and 2017 for attempting to traffic humans from Turkey to Greece.
“This morning, the sentences of four main members of the gang of mobsters related to the Zionist intelligence service were executed,” read a statement by the judiciary, adding that their sentences were carried out four days after the Islamic Republic’s supreme court upheld the penalty of capital punishment for “their intelligence cooperation with the Zionist regime [Israel] and kidnapping.” There was no recourse to appeal after the decision on Wednesday, November 30, it added.
According to the Wednesday ruling, three other defendants were sentenced to between five and 10 years in prison for crimes against the Islamic Republic’s security, complicity in kidnapping and possession of weapons.
All the seven individuals – whom the judiciary called “thugs” with previous criminal records -- allegedly received payment in cryptocurrencies and were guided by Israeli intelligence to buy weapons and equipment, do the abductions and interrogating them, engage in destroying public and private property, theft, kidnappings, and obtaining fake confessions. They allegedly received their instructions from a Mossad operative based in Sweden. They also received training on how to destroy evidence, evade security cameras, and swap vehicles, the judiciary claimed.
Iran’s state media claimed that the group was behind the kidnapping and interrogation of Iranian "jihadist" Yadollah Khedmati.
In July, Iran International obtained video footage of an interrogation in which a man introducing himself as Yadollah Khedmati, deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Logistics, says he regrets his involvement in shipping weapons to Iran’s proxy groups in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen and urges other IRGC officials to avoid engagement in such activities.
According to a source, Khedmati served as the deputy of Brigadier General Ali Asghar Nowrouzi, the IRGC’s Logistics commander who is known as a close associate of the former commander of the IRGC’s Qods Force, Ghasem Soleimani. Soleimani was assassinated by the US in Baghdad in January 2020.
Khedmati also tells his interrogators about Nowrouzi’s connections with Fars Air Qeshm cargo airline. The airline has been accused of transporting weapons for Hezbollah during the civil war in Syria.
In another case, Israeli media had published a short video in which a man identified as Mansour Rasouli said he was sent to Turkey by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) to establish an operational network, assassinate an Israeli diplomat in Istanbul, a Germany-based US general, and a journalist in France.
The audio recording surfaced hours after Iran International's report of the alleged Iranian triple assassination plot. Israeli television channels including Channel 12 which broadcast the recording, without providing a source according to The Times of Israel, claimed it was made by Mossad operatives posing as Iranian secret service at Rasouli's home in Tehran but did not hold him after the interrogation. In another video aired by Iran International in May, Rasouli said he was abducted and coerced to make false confessions.
Factual corrections were made in this report on June 15, 2023