25/11/2022
The UN Human Rights Council voted to establish a fact-finding mission to investigate the violent crackdown of the protests in Iran!
The European government must act now and escalate the pressure on the Islamic regime in Iran!
On 24 November 2022, we witnessed a significant step toward holding the Islamic regime accountable for the heavy and violent crackdown and imprisonment of protesters. The UN Human Rights Council(UNHRC) passed a motion by 25 votes in favour of setting up a fact-finding mission that will collect information on the crackdown on the mass protests in Iran which started following the killing of 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini (Jina Amini) in Tehran on 16 September 2022.
The suppression of the protesters ordered by the Islamic regime includes arbitrary arrest, kidnapping, forced disappearance, torture, rape, killing, execution sentences, and jail sentences for the protesters. The motion to establish a fact-finding mission indicates that the mission will “collect, consolidate and analyse evidence of such violations, and to preserve evidence, including in view of cooperation with any future legal proceedings in national, regional or international courts or tribunals that have, or may in the future have jurisdiction.”
This is the first time, in over 43 years of crimes against humanity in Iran, that such a motion in support of a fact-finding mission has passed by UNHRC and gained the support of many governments around the world.
Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran(CFPPI) has been campaigning since 2006 to raise the situation of political prisoners and their families in Iran and demand that the Islamic regime be held accountable for crimes against humanity. CFPPI, over the past 16 years, has sent various reports to the international community, including UNHRC, European governments, and relevant EU agencies. Since 16 September 2022 and following the killing of Mahsa Amini, CFPPI has been collecting and registering information on the number of detainees, tortures used in prisons, and the situation of prisons across Iran. CFPPI has been sending statements and reports on the situation of detainees in Iran and urging the international community to take concrete steps to establish an independent investigative mechanism. CFPPI welcomes the UNHRC motion and believes this is a milestone in the fight for justice for the people of Iran. This mission could hold the regime accountable for committing crimes against humanity.
The establishment of this fact-finding mission was possible because of the bravery of the people in Iran. Women and men in Iran have been risking their lives and protesting against the regime for more than two months. They have been speaking out against the regime and sending videos and news of the crackdown to the outside world, despite being attacked, shot at, and killed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps(IRGC). People in Iran have done this despite being heavily attacked by the IRGC and despite the Internet being shut down by the regime. This achievement is owed to the Woman, Life, Freedom movement.
CFPPI urges the European governments, including the UK government, to intensify their action and pressure the Islamic regime in Iran by closing their embassies in Iran. The regime’s embassies must be shut down in all European countries and the regime’s diplomats must be expelled. These diplomats are part of the Islamic regime that has been committing crimes against humanity in Iran.
The detainees of recent protests and all political prisoners must be released immediately and unconditionally.
Shiva Mahbobi
Spokeswoman, Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI)
www.cfppi.org shiva.mahbobi@gmail.com Tel: +447572356661
