UN committee adopts resolution criticizing Iran rights record

The resolution passed with 79 votes in favor, 28 against and 63 abstentions.

According to the text, it “condemned in the strongest terms the alarming and significant increase in and the sustained and extensive use of the application of the death penalty” in Iran.

Many executions, it added, were carried out without fair trials, in secrecy or on the basis of “forced confessions” obtained from detainees.

The resolution also raised concerns about transnational repression by Iranian authorities.

Iran carried out “repressive activities” aimed at harming, silencing and intimidating critics of the government, including human rights defenders, journalists and dissidents, the text continued, asserting that some individuals “were targeted overseas by transnational repression.”

It said Iranian authorities used digital targeting, including online harassment, surveillance and intimidation, adding that authorities also relied on physical force and other means, including threats and coercion, against individuals abroad.

Iranian officials targeted family members inside Iran through “surveillance, harassment and intimidation”, it asserted, as a way to pressure critics overseas.

Victims, survivors and families seeking accountability, including those linked to the 2022 protests, faced harassment as well.

The committee also expressed “serious concern” about Iran’s treatment of women and girls. It referred to the continuing enforcement of compulsory veiling laws and described them as discriminatory policies that undermined fundamental rights.

“I’m pleased to see strong condemnation of the alarming use of the death penalty... and the call for transparency in death penalty practices (in Iran),” UN’s Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Mai Sato, said in a post on X.

"Pleased to see transnational repression included in the resolution," she added.

Sato said Iran has executed over 1200 individuals in the first 10 months of the year.