Linda Chavez does not admit human rights abuses
Iranian President Hasan Rouhani delivers a
speech during the opening session of the new parliament in Tehran on May 28,
2016. (Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images)
With the attack last week that killed 17 people at a school in
Parkland, Florida, it is easy to miss the humanitarian crisis that occurred
across the globe in Syria. On Tuesday, hundreds of civilians, including
children, died when Syria's government and its allies executed a direct strike
on a rebel stronghold in eastern Ghouta — where Syrian forces used sarin in
2013, killing an estimated 1,500 people. The bloody faces of small children are
all too familiar in this vicious war by Bashar Assad and his Iranian and
Russian allies, who are intent on keeping him in power. More than 5 million
people have fled the regime. Another 6 million have been displaced within
Syria. And hundreds of thousands of people have died in the civil war.
Though this carnage has drawn condemnation from the U.S., Europe
and elsewhere, as long as Assad's partners in crimes against humanity, Russia
and Iran, continue to supply arms and fighters to the region, the killing will
not stop. The United Nations has been impotent to impose meaningful sanctions
because Russia, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, has veto
authority to stop them, which it has used seven times so far. But what of
Iran's role? Why has the international community not done more to focus on
Iran's activities in the region? And more importantly, why are U.N. bodies
inviting members of Iran's government to participate in human rights councils
at the very time Iran is helping Syria massacre civilians?
The U.N. Human Rights Council meets in Geneva next week, and one
of the speakers scheduled to address the group is Iranian Justice Minister
Alireza Avayi. That any official of the Iranian regime should address the
council is appalling, but that this particular official should do so at this
particular time is doubly so. Iran's human rights record is one of the worst in
the world, a matter affirmed not just by independent human rights organizations
but by the U.N.'s own reports. The latest report on human rights conditions in
Iran, issued in August 2017, criticized the government for its abuses against
its own people, including at least 247 executions — many for drug offenses — as
well as floggings, binding, amputations and stoning, not to mention the routine
abuse of women's rights and those of religious and ethnic minorities. But
Avayi's participation is particularly offensive given his personal history of
egregious human rights violation.
Avayi was appointed by Iranian President Hasan Rouhani in August
as the minister of justice for the Islamic Republic of Iran, but he has long
been an arm of the mullahs who have ruled Iran for nearly 40 years. The
European Union has accused Avayi of gross human rights abuses as head of the
Tehran judiciary, responsible for arbitrary detentions, numerous executions and
the violation of rights of prisoners. But Avayi's most infamous acts were his
involvement in the mass executions that took place in 1988, when the regime
executed more than 100,000 political prisoners and buried them in mass graves.
Avayi was part of a so-called "death board" that oversaw these
executions. These atrocities have only recently been recognized outside the
community of the Iranian opposition group whose members constituted many of the
victims, the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq. Avayi's human rights abuses did not end there,
however. They have continued to the present, including his department's
involvement in the torture and murder of dissidents after the 2009 protests in
Tehran. So how can such a man be allowed to speak before an international body
whose purpose is to oversee human rights?
If we want to stop the bloodshed in Syria and the entire region,
we must do more to prevent Assad's enablers. As long as Russia and Iran provide
weapons, military forces and financial support to Assad, children and other
innocent civilians will continue to die. Stopping the flow of money, arms and
fighters to the region might be difficult, but some measures should be easy: Do
not allow those involved in mass murder to address a U.N. gathering whose whole
purpose is to protect human rights.
Linda Chavez is chairwoman of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a nonprofit public policy research organization in Falls Church, Va.; a syndicated columnist; and a political analyst. Her latest book is "Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics." For more of her reports, Go Here Now
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