Unrestrained and Disproportionate Repression of Christians and Other Minorities in Iran
The UN Fact-Finding Committee reported on unrestrained and disproportionate repression of Christians and other minorities in Iran.
The UN Fact-Finding Committee released a report on August 6 documenting the government’s unrestrained and disproportionate repression of ethnic and religious minorities in Iran, as well as Kurdish and Baloch minorities during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement. The report states that “crimes against humanity in the form of persecution and harassment based on gender are intertwined with persecution and harassment based on ethnicity and religion.”
The UN Fact-Finding Committee provided clarifications regarding the widespread repression of religious and ethnic minorities, particularly in Kurdish and Baloch regions, and wrote the following about these repressions: “Security forces conducted mass arrests and detained members of ethnic and religious minorities who joined the protesters or expressed solidarity with the movement. Security forces subjected detainees to inhumane conditions, torture, ill-treatment, sexual assault, and other forms of sexual and physical violence. These acts were often accompanied by ethnic and religious connotations. The resulting situation is a direct consequence of longstanding discrimination that the Iranian government applies to minorities, which must be immediately stopped.”
The Fact-Finding Committee also referenced numerous other instances of structural discrimination and government repression in the aforementioned report, involving children belonging to ethnic and religious minorities, including the expulsion of Bahai students and the denial of adoption rights to a Christian couple based on religious beliefs. The report references harms inflicted including killings, disablement, arrests, forced disappearances, detention, torture, sexual assault, and other forms of violence that also affected child protesters during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement.
The Fact-Finding Committee noted in its report that the Islamic Republic government has failed to uphold its commitments under the “International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination” to which Iran is a signatory, and that the government’s laws and judicial system violate the principles of this international convention approved by the United Nations.
The committee stated that half of the interviews were conducted with victims and witnesses who were members of minority groups, and that many of the incidents reviewed occurred in provinces with minority populations.
In concluding its report, the UN Fact-Finding Committee called for accountability of Islamic Republic officials at both national and international levels in order to provide reparations to victims, particularly women and children of ethnic and religious minorities.
