Amnesty International Assails Iran’s Rights Record

Amnesty International Assails Iran’s Rights Record
By ALAN COWELL
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: December 10, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/world/middleeast/11iran.html?ref=global-home


LONDON — Amnesty International said Thursday that human rights violations in Iran after protests against the flawed presidential election in June were more severe than at any other time in the past 20 years and should be “fully and independently investigated.”

The report spoke of “many allegations” of torture, including rape, unlawful killings and other abuses, and said that members of militias and officials who have committed violations must also be promptly “held to account.”

The report was published after Iran’s broadest and most violent protest in months spilled over into a second day on Tuesday, with bloody clashes on university campuses between students chanting antigovernment slogans and the police and Basij militia members.

The clashes took place on campuses across the country as students and opposition members took advantage of National Student Day on Monday to vent their rage despite a broad government effort to forestall them.

After the elections in June, in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the overwhelming victor, opposition protesters took to the streets to challenge the outcome, presenting the authorities with their most intractable political crisis since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Hundreds of protesters were arrested and some of them were prosecuted at mass trials. The opposition said 70 people were killed.

In its report, Amnesty International urged Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to allow two United Nations human rights experts to enter the country to investigate.

Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, an Amnesty International specialist on the Middle East and North Africa, said, “The Iranian leadership must ensure that the many allegations of torture, including rape, unlawful killings and other abuses are fully and independently investigated.”

The Iranian authorities offered no immediate response to the report.

“To date, the investigations announced by various Iranian authorities seem to have been more concerned with covering up abuses than getting at the truth,” Amnesty International said in a statement accompanying the report.

The document revived allegations, which the Iranian authorities have denied in the past, that prison authorities raped or threatened to rape detainees.

According to Amnesty International, one former detainee said he was held in a shipping container along with 70 other people at the Kahrizak detention center for 58 days and was told that his son would be raped if he did not confess to antigovernment activities.

“The authorities must show that they have turned the page on the abuses committed this summer. They must now ensure that the policing of protests conforms fully to international standards on law enforcement, and keep the Basij and other strong arm forces off the street,” Amnesty International said.