Iranian people do not forgive: We condemn inviting the Islamic Republic to speak at the United Nations Human Rights Council

Alireza Awaii, the justice minister of the Islamic Republic, has been asked to speak at the 37^th sitting of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Switzerland on Tuesday February 27. The Islamic Republic is one of the most vicious governments of our time and should be condemned and ostracized by any institution and government that lays claim to supporting human rights. Like other figures of the Islamic Republic, Alireza Awaii has a voluminous file in crimes against the Iranian people. From 2005 to 2014 he has been heading Tehran’s justice department and has had an active role in suppressing political opponents. That is why, for his part in arrests, executions, and violating the rights of prisoners, the European Union and the United Nations have put him on their boycott list. Moreover, Awaii is accused of having been a member of the Death Commission of Ahwaz and Dezful prisons in the 1980s and participated in the massacre of political prisoners.

The justifications of Swiss authorities and the Human Rights Council of the United Nations for inviting the Islamic Republic and a criminal who already sits on their boycott list is shameful.

Isabel Herkommer, a spokesperson for Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, and Rolando Gomez, public information officer for the United Nations Human Rights Council, in response to an AFP (Agence France-Presse) reporter, made shameful statements such as: “Swiss authorities can make exceptions,” and make it possible for a boycotted person to participate in an international conference, or: “we do not invite governments to deliver speeches, we invite governments to participate so that we can hear their voices.” Such justifications are not acceptable either for the Iranian people, who are the victims, or for any decent person elsewhere in the world. Such justifications further discredit this institution for the Iranian people.

Inviting the criminal Islamic Republic and its representatives to speak at any session, particularly at one that carries the name of human rights, is a blatant derision against the Iranian people and the victims of this regime, and would certainly not go without a reaction. No one and no authority can be permitted to put murderers in position of spokesmen for human rights, no matter how it is defined. Murderers should not be given the opportunity to show their faces in world institutions. Criminals such as Alireza Awaii should, instead, be charged with crimes against humanity and put on trial.

The Worker-communist Party of Iran (Organisation Abroad) calls on all freedom-loving people, particularly Iranians in Europe and Switzerland, to protest against this decision of the United Nations Human Rights Council, the Swiss authorities, and the European Union, in any way they can, including holding gatherings in front of the session.

Worker-communist Party of Iran (Organisation Abroad)

February 23^rd, 2018