Should HRW try to urge Iran to investigate my and Irans rights at all?”
Two human rights groups on Monday pressed the UN General Assembly to appoint a special envoy to probe grave rights abuses in Iran since the disputed June 12 presidential election. The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran and New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the 192 member states should seize on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s attendance at the General Assembly this week to demand accountability for the wave of state-sponsored violence in Iran. They cited “unlawful use of lethal force against peaceful protesters, lengthy solitary confinement and coerced confessions” as well as “numerous allegations of torture and rape of detainees.” “Despite the government’s tightening grip and resort to brutality, responsible members of Iran’s civil society and political and clerical communities continue to demand the authorities respect fundamental rights, at grave risk to their own well-being,” said Hadi Ghaemi, head of the Campaign. “Member states of the United Nations
TEHRAN, Iran- On March 18, the Iranian government announced the death of blogger Omidreza Mirsayafi. Mirsayafi had been arrested in April 2008 and convicted of insulting Iran’s religious clerics on his blog, including the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and was sentenced to two and a half years in Iran’s notorious Evin prison. According to the judge, Mirsayafi was sentenced to two years for “insulting” Iran’s religious leaders, and an additional six months for “publicity against the government.” Prison officials maintain that Mirsayafi died as a result of committing suicide and not from abuse. Yet according to Hadi Ghaemi, spokesman for the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, “Iranian leaders have relegated the administration of the prison system to a group of incompetent and cruel officials who are showing their utter disregard for human life. If the authorities do not move quickly to hold negligent officials responsible, they are reinforcing impunity and the lack of ac
