IRAN TRANSITION COUNCIL
25 November 2019
His Excellency António Guterres
United Nations Secretary General
United Nations
New York, NY 10017
United States
EXTREMELY URGENT COMMUNICATION
Dear Secretary General,
Iran Emergency November 2019
We write on behalf of the Iran Transition Council (ITC) (www.iran-tc.com). The ITC is an umbrella organisation, bringing together representatives of the overwhelming majority of democratic parties and movements confronting the current Iranian regime. Members and affiliates come from the world-wide Iranian community and from within Iran. Membership is open to anyone who adheres to the UDHR and the UN Charter. The ITC’s charter incorporates all the international human rights conventions.
We have been following the situation in Iran since 14 November with profound concern. The events leave no doubt that the Iranian people need the protection of the international community. Iranian citizens are in actual, imminent and grave danger of gross crimes against humanity. State security forces and armed militias are reportedly using extreme and lethal force to supress civilian demonstrations, firing live rounds on protestors, and using snipers to execute civilians, with hundreds of civilians wounded or killed. Information emanating from official state sources strongly suggests such attacks on the civilian population are state policy, officially ordained by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei to be implemented on a systematic and widespread basis. It is also reported that protestors have been abducted and forcibly disappeared. False confessions are being extracted under duress, and there is evidence that mass executions are likely to follow.
These reports amount to allegations of the most serious crimes against humanity and grave violations of human rights, by officials, agents and proxies of the Iranian regime. The international community has an urgent responsibility to adopt decisive and effective measures to prevent and investigate these grave crimes and human rights abuses, and to prevent the crisis in Iran undermining and threatening regional stability and the international order.
The deepening economic crisis in Iran has exacerbated unemployment, poverty and deprivation across Iran. Faced with national economic crisis, on 14 November 2019 the Iranian Supreme Council of Economic Coordination, headed by President Rouhani, the leader of the Parliament Ali Larijani, and Chief Justice Ebrahim Raissi, ordered that fuel prices should be raised immediately to at least double, if not almost treble, previous prices.
The price hike prompted protests across Iran. Since 15 November there have been civil protests in 127 cities and towns, throughout Iran. Under the orders of Ayatollah Khamanei, Iranian authorities have responded to the protests by shutting down the Internet for the purpose of imposing a blackout on information within Iran. The attempt to suppress information flows within Iran and to the outside world about the brutal response of the regime on the streets has not succeeded.
It has been reported that over 200 civilians have been killed and thousands detained. Civilian deaths are reported to have been caused by snipers firing from helicopters and the tops of buildings and the firing of live ammunition into crowds of demonstrators. Many reports allege that ordinary citizens, including children, are being shot through the head. This strongly suggests that the regime is deliberately and systematically deploying a ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy in response to the civil demonstrations.
Credible and widespread reports indicate that unknown numbers of civilians have been detained, abducted or forcibly disappeared. Reports from inside Iran confirm that bodies, as well as injured individuals shot by snipers, are being removed and extrajudicially disappeared. It has further been reported that bodies are being forcibly removed from hospital mortuaries, suggesting an attempt to cover up crimes. Messages from inside the hospitals, including from medical staff, claim that injured protestors who have been brought to hospitals for treatment, have been kidnapped and forcibly disappeared by regime officials and civilian proxy militia.
The alleged perpetrators of these crimes and human rights abuses include Iranian police and security personnel, including the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp, under the control and direction of senior officials, and under the ultimate direct authority of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. It is also alleged that unidentified civilian militia, and/or unmarked security force personnel, in civilian guise are perpetrating these crimes and human rights abuses. There are suggestions that such actors are in reality acting under the direction and control of the Iranian regime.
Despite the regime’s attempt to shut down social media, there is incontrovertible and widespread evidence across social media that the protests were spontaneous, triggered by the precipitous and extortionate hikes in fuel prices. However, there are numerous reports that detained civilians are being forced to enter false confessions under duress. The forced confessions are being televised. Kayhan newspaper, the official mouthpiece of the regime, edited by a direct appointee of Khamenei, carried the following headline on 18 November: ‘The hangman’s rope awaiting the rented trouble-makers (special report)’. It is followed by what the article claims are ‘confessions’ of some protestors, saying, amongst other things, that they were ‘trained abroad’ and paid, armed and instructed, by unidentified foreign actors to engage in protest, riot, destruction and arson. The article states that this confession ‘is the common statement of the majority of the leaders of those arrested’. The article states ‘that judicial sources are confirming that hanging by rope for the leaders is certainty….the crime of the rioters is outlaw and the punishment for that is execution’.
Further information received on 24 November indicates that the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, is preparing to order mass executions.
On 22 November 2019, UNHCHR Special Procedures Experts issued a statement on the situation in Iran.[1] The Special Procedures Experts expressed concern at ‘reports of killings and injuries, and that the authorities may have used excessive force against those participating in the protests …[reminding]… the authorities that under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, lethal force is to be used only when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life’. Noting the credible reports of killings, the statement further stated: ‘We remind the Government of its obligations under the Covenant, and call upon the authorities to ensure that the rights to freedom of opinion and expression, as well as freedom of peaceful assembly and association, are respected and protected’.
There is no evidence that these statements are being heeded, in fact, quite the reverse. Public statements have been made by high ranking officials, including Mr Hessamedin Ashena, Special Adviser to the President, that the protests have triggered a ‘second Mersad’. This highly specific reference forebodes an intention to carry out mass summary executions/extrajudicial killings of dissidents, in a repeat of the well-documented ‘Prison Massacres’ of 1988. The Mersad (مرصاد), meaning ‘trap’, is the name given by the Iranian regime to the failed ‘Eternal Light Invasion’ into Iran by exiled members of the dissident leftist group the Mojahedin Khalq Organisation (MKO) on 25 July 1988, before implementation of the Iran-Iraq war ceasefire. Following the comprehensive obliteration of that invasion by Iranian forces, up to 5000 political prisoners and ‘apostates’ were summarily executed in Iranian prisons, further to a ‘Death Fatwa’ issued on 28 July 1988 by the late Ayatollah Khomenei. In 1988, now Chief Justice Ebrahim Raissi was a member of the ‘Death Commission’ sent into Evin and Gohordasht prisons to carry out the Death Fatwa. The Prison Massacres of 1988 are widely documented. Last week in Sweden, an official who is alleged to have worked with Raissi in carrying out the executions in Gohordasht prison, was arrested under the principles of Universal Jurisdiction.
Judging by the reports from Iran, the 1988 Prison Massacre atrocity is now being repeated on a national scale.
In short, there is widespread evidence of alleged grave crimes against humanity and violation of a range of fundamental human rights recognised in international law.
As such, we request that the UNSC takes very urgent action to call on Iran:
- Immediately to cease and desist from the use of lethal force against civilian protestors;
- Immediately to cease and desist from all alleged activities that amount to crimes against humanity, including murder, extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary killings and executions, forced disappearances; and
- Refrain from violations of human rights of protestors, including the right to peaceful assembly and demonstration.
Further, we urge the UN Security Council to refer an investigation of these alleged crimes against humanity to the ICC Prosecutor pursuant to a resolution under chapter VII of the UN Charter.
As noted above, these reports of acts of the Iranian regime and/or civilian proxies or militia under its control and direction amount to crimes against humanity. Under article 7 of the Rome Statute, widespread or systematic attack directed against civilian populations amounts to ‘crimes against humanity’ when it includes or amounts to, amongst other things, murder, extermination, forcible transfer, imprisonment or severe deprivation of liberty in violation of international law, persecution of any identifiable group or collectively on political or religious grounds (amongst others), enforced disappearance, and other inhumane acts causing great suffering, or serious injury.
Iran signed the Rome statute in 2000 but has not ratified it. However, on a referral by the UN Security Council, the ICC Prosecutor has jurisdiction to investigate these alleged crimes against humanity further to article 13(b) of the Rome Statute. Therefore, we call upon the UN Security Council urgently to adopt a resolution under Chapter VII of the UN Charter referring these alleged crimes against humanity to the ICC Prosecutor for immediate investigation. We respectfully submit that general obligations to prevent grave violations of international law, and to maintain regional and international peace and security, place a heavy burden on the UNSC to propose and adopt such a resolution.
Regretfully, we have come to the conclusion that there are no domestic remedies left to prevent these atrocities and to protect the civilian population in Iran. It is clear that the citizens of Iran urgently need international humanitarian protection from a regime that has, over decades, operated with impunity against anyone holding dissenting political or religious beliefs.
In summary, we urge you to lead urgent international calls for Iran immediately to cease and desist from the use of lethal force against its own population and from other international crimes and human rights violations. We respectfully request that an urgent resolution should be tabled before the UN Security Council, seeking referral to the ICC’s Prosecutor for an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity.
Yours respectfully,
Hassan Shariat Madari
Secretary General, Iran Transition Council
Kaveh Moussavi
Head of Transitional Justice & Legal Affairs, Iran Transition Council
Cc:
Her Excellency Ms Michelle Bachelet Jeria
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
Palais des Nations
CH-1211 Geneva 10
Switzerland
Cc:
For the attention of Special Procedures Mandate Holders
UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
Palais des Nations
CH-1211 Geneva 10
Switzerland
Mr Javaid REHMAN
Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran
Ms Elina STEINERTE
Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
Mr Luciano HAZAN
Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances
Ms Agnes CALLAMARD
Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions
Mr David KAYE
Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
Mr Nyaletsossi Clément VOULE
Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association
Mr Dainius PŪRAS
Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health
Mr Michel FORST
Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders
Mr. Diego GARCIA-SAYAN
Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers
Mr Livingstone SEWANYANA
Independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order
Mr Philip ALSTON
Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
Mr Ahmed SHAHEED
Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief
Mr Nils MELZER
Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
Mr Fabián SALVIOLI
Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation & guarantees of non-recurrence
[1] UN experts Javaid Rehman, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran; Clement Nyaletsossi Voule, Special Rapporteur on the right to peaceful assembly and association; David Kaye, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; Agnes Callamard, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions: ‘Iran: Experts raise alarm at arrests and reported killings, internet shutdown’ OHCHR, Geneva 22 November 2019
