The torture of journalists is widespread in Iran and the country has made no progress on women’s rights issues, U.N. special rapporteur Asma Jahangir says • Report “politically motivated, illegitimate, rancorous and disreputable,” Iranian official says.
There had been little change in the human rights situation in Iran over the past year, with continuing harassment of journalists and extremely slow progress on women’s rights, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Iran said on Thursday.
A day after submitting her report to the world body, Asma Jahangir told reporters that torture is widespread in Iran and that some people have been imprisoned for seeking justice.
Jahangir said she had not attempted to assess the impact of sanctions on human rights in Iran in her report because she had not been allowed to visit the country, which does not recognize her mandate.
Iran rejected Jahangir’s report as biased.
“The report is politically motivated, illegitimate, rancorous and disreputable,” Iranian state TV channel IRINN quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi as saying on Thursday.
Iran says Western countries use the issue of human rights as a political tool to apply pressure on it and has often deemed this as “unacceptable.”
Reuters
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