Iran Focus
In its annual report on U.S. efforts at encouraging human rights worldwide, entitled “Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record 2005 – 2006”, the U.S. State Department accused Iran of carrying out summary executions, discrimination based on ethnicity and religion, harassment and arrest of journalists and bloggers, disappearances, extremist vigilantism, widespread use of torture, and other degrading treatment.
The report described the June 2005 election of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as flawed. Inevitably, the election of a hard-line legislature and government that emphasized revolutionary dogma negatively impacted the human rights of average Iranians, it said.
Violence and a brutal crackdown in which dozens were killed or injured accompanied protests by ethnic Arabs in Khuzestan in April 2005 and by ethnic Kurds in north-western Iran in the summer of 2005. The government continued to detain and torture dissidents and individuals exercising freedom of expression, including scores of political prisoners, the report said.
It charged that the hard-line government continued to discriminate against and arrest members of the Bahai religious community. Other religious and ethnic minority groups, including Jews, Christians, and Sunni and Sufi Muslims faced continued social, political, and economic discrimination, it said.
Iran was believed to be a source, transit, and destination country for sexual exploitation and labour-related trafficking in persons (TIP).
Although the United States does not maintain diplomatic relations with Iran, it continued a multi-faceted effort to support the Iranian peoples aspirations to live in a democratic country where human rights are respected, it added.
