(04/17/01) -- Human Rights Watch expressed serious concern today that a resolution on Iran at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights may be in jeopardy. The international monitoring organization said that escalating arrests of peaceful activists while the Commission has been meeting only underscore the need for the member states of the Commission to support the draft resolution when it comes up for a vote this week.
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A 'yes' vote for the resolution is essential to support those Iranians struggling against great odds to change the situation for the better. Anything less will send a terrible signal, not only to Iranian reformers but to human rights defenders and advocates everywhere
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Human Rights Watch noted that journalists and students remain in prison -- many after closed-door trials -- and religious minorities continue to face persecution. In the past year, the Judicial Branch, a conservative stronghold, has closed more than thirty independent newspapers and journals. The judiciary has thwarted efforts by President Mohamed Khatami to bring to justice officials responsible for a series of brutal murders of political dissidents in late 1998.
"A 'yes' vote for the resolution is essential to support those Iranians struggling against great odds to change the situation for the better," Stork said. "Anything less will send a terrible signal, not only to Iranian reformers but to human rights defenders and advocates everywhere."
Human Rights Watch last week condemned the arrests since April 7 of more than forty independent political activists as a "creeping coup," aimed at derailing Iran's presidential election scheduled for June 8.
