2023-12-12 20:56:00
His presence in Geneva is surprising to say the least. The Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, was to be one of the many distinguished guests this Tuesday at a high mass for human rights which was held since Monday in Switzerland on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human and Civil Rights. Organized by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) at the Palais des Nations, the historic seat of the League of Nations until 1946, the “high-level event” was to see the head of Iranian diplomacy will participate on Tuesday afternoon in a round table devoted to the “Future of human rights, the environment and the climate”.
READ ALSO Narges Mohammadi, Nobel Peace Prize 2023: “The fight against compulsory veiling is not just a women’s affair” On this occasion, Hossein Amir Abdollahian had three minutes to present his “concrete recommendations to address the triple planetary crisis through the prism of human rights, and through measures aimed at ensuring respect for these rights as a path towards solutions “, explains the working document provided by OHCHR. “The invitation was sent to all member states and Iran responded positively, telling us that it would be represented by its Minister of Foreign Affairs,” explains Ravina Shamdasani, chief spokesperson for the Office of the High Commissioner for Foreign Affairs. United Nations for Human Rights. It is important to obtain broad engagement on the issue of human rights and maintain an open dialogue with each country. »
“As if we had invited a South African leader from the apartheid era”
The prospect of seeing the representative of the Islamic Republic deliver his advice on human rights, while the Islamic Republic has executed more than 600 people since the start of the year, has aroused the anger of specialists on the issue . “The only place for an Iranian official in such a meeting should be in the dock, given the very serious human rights violations taking place in Iran, some of which amount to crimes against humanity” , points out Mahmoud Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the leading NGO Iran Human Rights, based in Oslo. “Since January, at least two people have been executed every day, a figure which has increased to three per day over the past two months. More than 530 protesters have been killed since September 2022, and at least 123 people have suffered facial injuries, including women. »
READ ALSO “This Nobel Peace Prize rewards resistance inside Iran” According to our information, however, it was not planned that the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs would be questioned about his country’s human rights record. “Even if I perfectly understand the need for the United Nations to involve each country in these events, there is a difference between inviting a country and giving it a voice,” denounces Belgian humanitarian Olivier Vandecasteele, who was arbitrarily detained 455 days in Iran before being released last May, in exchange for an Iranian spy diplomat convicted in Belgium for terrorism. “This may seem bitter for the Iranian human rights defenders still detained, for the foreigners held hostage, as well as their family and friends. I hope that the participants in these conferences will pronounce their names loud and clear. »
Complaint for crimes against humanity
However, the UN body may have escaped a worse snub. Indeed, the Iranian delegation in Geneva was initially to be led by the Iranian president himself, Ebrahim Raïssi. The presence of the former ultraconservative judge, accused of having played a leading role in the execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988, was confirmed at the Global Forum on Refugees organized in Geneva by the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) which is due to begin on Wednesday December 13, Iran being one of the countries hosting the most refugees in the world. But the filing Monday in Switzerland of a complaint for “crime against humanity” by three former Iranian prisoners calling for the arrest and indictment of Ebrahim Raïssi surely dissuaded the head of the Iranian executive from making the journey.
READ ALSO Mitra Hejazipour: pariah in Iran, queen in France The United Nations is already under fire for having entrusted the Islamic Republic of Iran with the presidency of the 2023 edition of the Social Forum of the UN Human Rights Council, which took place on 2 and November 3 in Geneva. “On this occasion, Iranian officials went so far as to cut off the microphones of critical NGOs, effectively establishing censorship within the UN itself,” recalls Mahmoud Amiry-Moghaddam. At the United Nations, we recall that the Islamic Republic was the subject of several public statements of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to denounce capital executions, the situation of women or obstacles to the right to demonstrate.
Western paradox
Coincidentally, the head of Iranian diplomacy landed in Geneva the same day the European Parliament awarded its Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman who died in September 2022 at the hands of the morality police. On Sunday, it was Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi who received the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize. But due to her imprisonment for more than two years in the Evin detention center in Tehran, these are her children Kiana and Ali Rahmani who collected his award in Oslo and read a speech on his behalf.
READ ALSO “Woman, life, freedom”: in Iran, the daily revolution of women “This sequence brings to light the Western paradox: Iranian women are rewarded for peace and human rights which serve as a moral guarantee, while their leaders handily win the palm of realpolitik, war and chaos: in Iran, the Middle East and Ukraine, deplores Franco-Iranian lawyer Chirinne Ardakani. In reality, the Iranian regime, which perfectly masters the workings of institutions, deploys a reverse human rights diplomacy: by preventing Iranian prize recipients from traveling, it denies them an international platform which it uses at will to control its story and impose its balance of power. » Thus, the own parents of Mahsa Amini, who became the icon of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” revolt movement in Iran, were prohibited from leaving the Islamic Republic to collect the prize for their late daughter, while they were preparing to embark for France.
Absence
However, to everyone’s surprise, Hossein Amir Abdollahian ended up not showing up at Tuesday afternoon’s round table on human rights, preferring a meeting organized at the same time by the Permanent Mission of Palestine in Geneva. in favor of the people of Gaza. The head of Iranian diplomacy took the opportunity to turn the accusations against Iran against the United States and Israel, saying that “the credibility of the United Nations organs is affected by the implementation selective work of international law” on the Israeli-Palestinian question. On the other hand, he will participate in the Global Forum on Refugees from Wednesday, in place of Iranian President Ebrahim Raïssi.
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