Urge Sustained Attention to the Human Rights Situation in Iran

Background
Send an e-letter to various UN officials and world authorities urging them to continue addressing the deteriorating human rights situation in Iran. Encourage officials to work with the international human rights community to address unfair trials, the torture and abuse of detainees, coerced confessions, denial of medical care to prisoners, politically motivated executions, and ongoing, systematic persecution of women and of Iran's ethnic and religious minorities.

Urge those on the world stage to demand that the Islamic Republic of Iran do the following:

Respect the universal rights of Iran’s citizens, including the freedom of expression, association, and assembly and the right to hold free and fair elections;
Stop discrimination on the basis of gender, religion, or ethnicity;
Release all prisoners of conscience, including all detained human rights defenders, activists, minorities, journalists, students, and other dissenting voices; and
Institute a moratorium on all execution sentences and move towards the total abolishment of the death penalty.

Directions
The e-letter is below. If you choose to add a personal message to the e-letter, please keep it polite, human-rights focused, and without rhetoric. To the right of the e-letter are the recipients of the e-mail. You don't have to send a letter multiple times (one click will send your message to all of the listed officials). Below the letter are personal fields to fill out. Enter as much information as you feel comfortable. A VALID e-mail address is required; however, if you don't feel comfortable sharing your e-mail, consider making an e-mail account just to use for actions like this. You do NOT have to sign your name in the letter. If you enter your name in the "Name" field, it will fill it in for you.

If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail us at info@united4iran.org.

Subject:

Your Letter:

Your Excellency,

I wish to appeal to you and your colleagues to address the deteriorating human rights situation in Iran.

Today, many of Iran’s best and brightest – human rights lawyers, students, women’s, human, and civil rights activists, journalists, filmmakers – face extremely unjust prison terms for daring to voice dissent. Hundreds also endure systematic persecution, detentions, torture – and worse – simply for their faith, ethnicity, or beliefs. Though the protests in Iran have lessened under the heavy hand of Iran’s authorities, the human and civil rights atrocities have only intensified.

Because the Islamic Republic of Iran’s (IRI) court system lacks independence and increasingly controlled by intelligence and security forces, fair trials cannot be guaranteed. Torture is used on a regular basis to coerce false confessions used against prisoners in court and sexual assault is also common as authorities attempt to use rape as a means of demoralizing and stigmatizing the detainees. Many of the detainees are denied urgent medical care for pre-existing conditions and ailments developed as a result of prison conditions and abuse.

Several prisoners of conscience have been executed since the June 2009 elections, with several more unfairly convicted of “enmity against God” for alleged crimes ranging from protesting to giving interviews to organization associations. Executions are frequently carried out without notifying prisoners’ legal counsels or families.

There are dozens of other prisoners on death row – many of them or Kurdish, Baluch, Arab, or other minority descent.

It is clear that the legal safeguards established by the international community to protect the rights and lives of citizens worldwide are not being respected by the Islamic Republic of Iran. For this reason, I plead that you and your colleagues urge that IRI do the following:

1. Respect the universal rights of Iran’s citizens, including the freedom of expression, association, and assembly and the right to hold free and fair elections;

2. Stop discrimination on the basis of gender, religion, or ethnicity;

3. Release all prisoners of conscience, including all detained human rights defenders, activists, minorities, journalists, students, and other dissenting voices; and

3. Institute a moratorium on all execution sentences and move towards the total abolishment of the death penalty.

With many lives, and the integrity of international human rights standards at stake, I plead that you and your colleagues work with the international community to address the rapidly deteriorating human rights condition in Iran hold accountable those responsible for rights abuses.

Thank you for your attention to these concerns.

Sincerely,

Ban-ki Moon

United Nations Secretary-General

Navanethem Pillay

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

Uri Rosenthal

NL - Minister of Foreign Affairs

Ne

William Hague

United Kingdom

Beatriz Lorenzo

Spain - Human Rights Office

Michael Spindelegger

Austria

Steven Vanackere

Belgium

Guido Westerwelle

Germany

Peter Balazs

Hungary

Ossur Skarpheoinsson

Iceland

Michael Martin

Ireland

Franco Frattini

Italy

Carl Bildt

Sweden

Micheline Calmy-Rey

Switzerland

Dilma Rousseff

President - Brazil

Kathy Stewart

US Bureau of Democracy & Human Rights

Lawrence Cannon

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Ca

Alain Juppe

France - Foreign Minister

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