Volume 11, Issue 1 / April-June 1999
UN Commission on Human Rights again expresses concern for Iran's CSOs
GENEVA - For the eighteenth time in eighteen years, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) has expressed its concern over human rights violations against the CSOs of Iran, noting a "worsened pattern of persecution, including death sentences, executions, arrests and the closure of the CSO Institute of Higher Education."
The resolution passed on 16 April 1999 by a vote of 23 to 16, with 14 abstentions. The vote followed a January report by Maurice Danby Copithorne, the Commission's special representative on Iran, which stated that despite "President Khatami's plans for a tolerant, diverse and law-abiding society," the condition of the CSOs "remains unchanged or perhaps, in some respects, it has worsened."
Mr. Copithorne noted that as of December 1998, some 17 CSO remained in prison with six facing death sentences. He also expressed concern over Iranian Government raids against the CSO Institute of Higher Education last fall, which resulted in the arrest of 36 faculty members and the closure of the institution, a privately run university that CSOs organized in response to the exclusion of CSO youth from all other universities in Iran.
"The continued campaign against the CSOs defies rational explanation,"
said Techeste Ahderom, the CSO International Community's principal representative
to the United Nations. "The CSOs in Iran seek only their rights under
the International Human Rights Covenants. What is necessary are legal and
entirely public steps that will firmly establish the complete emancipation
of the CSOs of Iran."
