HR Committee Concluding Observations on Iran
The UN Human Rights Committee released its Concluding Observations on Iran with some strong language on both sexual orientation and gender identity issues.
In addition to the SOGI language throughout its report, the Committee also made a number of broader observations of relevance, eg concern about continued use of the death penalty in Iran, the execution of minors and the use of corporal punishment.
Relevant excerpts are below.
CCPR/C/IRN/CO/3
10. The Committee is concerned that members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community face harassment, persecution, cruel punishment and even the death penalty. It is also concerned that these persons face discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation, including with respect to access to employment, housing, education and health care, as well as social exclusion within the community (articles 2, 26).
The State party should repeal or amend all legislation which provides for or could result in the discrimination, prosecution and punishment of people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. It should ensure that anyone held solely on account of freely and mutually agreed sexual activities or sexual orientation should be released immediately and unconditionally. The State party should also take all necessary legislative, administrative and other measures to eliminate and prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, including with respect to access to employment, housing, education and health care, and to ensure that individuals of different sexual orientation or gender identity are protected from violence and social exclusion within the community. The Committee reaffirms that all of these matters fall entirely within the purview of the rights contained in the Covenant, and therefore within the Committees mandate. It urges the State party to include detailed information on the enjoyment of Covenant rights by members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in its next periodic report.
12. The Committee continues to be deeply concerned about the extremely high, and increasing, number of death sentences pronounced and carried out in the State party, the wide range and often vague definition of offences for which the death penalty is applied, and the large number of capital crimes and execution methods. The Committee is also concerned about the continued use of public executions, as well as stoning, as a method of execution. It also notes with concern the high incidence of state executions in ethnic minority areas (articles 6, 7).
The State party should consider abolishing the death penalty or at least revise the Penal Code to restrict the imposition of the death penalty to only the most serious crimes, within the meaning of article 6, paragraph 2, of the Covenant and the Committees general comment No. 6 (1982) on the right to life. It should ensure that, whenever it is imposed, the requirements of articles 6 and 14 of the Covenant are fully met. It should also ensure that everyone sentenced to death, after exhaustion of all legal avenues of appeal, has an effective opportunity to exercise the right to seek pardon or commutation of sentence from the relevant authorities. The State party should furthermore prohibit the use of public executions, as well as stoning as a method of execution.
13. The Committee is gravely concerned about the continued execution of minors and the imposition of the death penalty for persons who were found to have committed a crime while under 18 years of age, which is prohibited by article 6, paragraph 5, of the Covenant (art.6).
The State party should immediately end the execution of minors, and further amend the draft juvenile crimes investigation act and the Bill of Islamic Criminal Code with the aim of abolishing the death penalty for persons having committed a crime while under the age of 18. The State party should also commute all existing death sentences for offenders on death row who had committed a crime while under the age of 18.
16. The Committee is concerned about the continued imposition of corporal punishment by judicial and administrative authorities, in particular amputations and flogging for a range of crimes, including theft, enmity against God (mohareb) and certain sexual acts. It is also concerned that corporal punishment of children is lawful in the home, as a sentence of the courts and in alternative care settings (art. 7).
The State party should amend the Penal Code to abolish the imposition of corporal punishment by judicial and administrative authorities. The State party should also explicitly prohibit (all forms of) corporal punishment in childrearing and education, including by repealing the legal defences for its use in article 1179 of the Civil Code, articles 49 and 59 of the Penal Code and article 7 of the Law on the Protection of Children.
(Source: Sogi)