Ireland urged to tackle Iran on rights

Ireland must continue to push Iran on its human rights violations, the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs was told today.

Committee members were informed that 388 people were executed in 2009 and that at least 190 people have also been killed since the beginning of this year.

An Amnesty International Ireland delegation led by executive director Colm O'Gorman said the majority of the executions had taken place after trials that were in violation of international law and which included evidence obtained from forced confessions.

The delegation met the committee to highlight the treatment of prisoners by the Iranian authorities and to ask them to sign an open letter in support of human rights in Iran.

Dr Roja Fazaeli, Iran co-ordinator for Amnesty International Ireland, said Iranian authorities continued to use the practice of stoning as a method of execution and that many such executions took place in public.

Dr Fazaeli said the death penalty was applied in many political cases and that gay people and members of ethic minorities were commonly targeted for execution.

Maryam Hoseeinkhan, a journalist and former Iranian prisoner of conscience, described how her lawyer Nasrin Sotoodeh had been arrested earlier this year for her support of human rights activists. Ms Sotoodeh is currently being held in solitary confinement in Evin Prison in Tehran where she is reported to be in the third week of a hunger strike.

"When I was in prison and under pressure and interrogation, Nasrin helped me so much as a lawyer, as a friend, as a member of my family...now it is my turn to help her," she said.

The delegation called on the committee to raise the case of specific prisoners with the Iranian government and to back calls for Iran to allow UN human rights experts into the country immediately.

Michael D Higgins (Labour) said he had been informed that lawyers were often targeted by the authorities in Iran.

"Humiliation of lawyers is an important feature employed by the government. It belittles prisoners when there is a procession of lawyers in front of them," he said.

Senator David Norris (Independent) referred to collaboration by the media in Iran who routinely film forced confessions and expressed surprise to hear of the large number of rapes of male prisoners, which he said was "extraordinary for such a homophobic country."

Mr O'Gorman told committee members that putting pressure on the authorities could make a difference.

"The more we can expose the violations the more impossible it becomes for them to continue. Iran can be influenced," he said.

Mr Gorman added that Ireland was a "good champion" of human rights on the world stage and must continue to be so.

Committee chairman Michael Woods (Fianna Fáil) said it was evident that UN sanctions were beginning to have an impact in Iran but backed calls to continue to push the Iranian government.

Mr Woods added he would be writing to the incoming Iranian ambassador, who is to gain his credentials shortly, on behalf of the committee about a number of individual cases highlighted by Amnesty Internal and about the human rights situation in the country in general.