Reuters: Iran's rejection of human rights recommendations made by Western nations shows contempt for both international obligations and its own people, rights group Amnesty International said late on Wednesday. LONDON (Reuters) – Iran's rejection of human rights recommendations made by Western nations shows contempt for both international obligations and its own people, rights group Amnesty International said late on Wednesday.
An official U.N. report published on Wednesday said Iran had rejected calls to release all political prisoners and accept an international inquiry into violence after last June's contested presidential elections.
The Islamic Republic also refused to end the death penalty and said it would not make torture an offence under its laws, according to the report.
"By rejecting specific recommendations made by dozens of countries, the Iranian authorities showed contempt for international obligations just as they have done in their treatment of their own people," said Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.
"By promising to consider recommendations to eliminate the execution of juvenile offenders, the Iranian authorities are cynically camouflaging their existing obligation under the Convention on the Rights of the Child not to execute juvenile offenders."
Despite agreeing to a Netherlands recommendation to "take measures to ensure that no torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment takes place", Iran rejected another from Spain to sign the U.N. anti-torture pact.
Amnesty said the large number of contradictions between the 123 recommendations accepted by the Iranians and the 45 they rejected cast doubt over their willingness to actually implement the measures they had agreed to.
"For human rights to really improve in Iran, the authorities must end the double-speak and take concrete measures," Sahraoui said.
(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Louise Ireland)
