Iranian Resistance condemns regime's pressuring of Prof. Copithorne

In the wake of the publication of the interim report of the UNHRC Special Representative on the situation of human rights in Iran, Professor Maurice Danby Copithorne, the officials of the Khomeini regime and government backed media began preparations to hinder and sabotage Prof. Copithorne's mission.

The mullahs' Foreign Minister described the Special Representative's report as "worthless" and said, "Human rights must be evaluated on the basis of our own cultural and religious interpretations." The spokesman for the regime's Foreign Ministry emphasized that the human rights situation in Iran will not be affected by the U.N. rapporteurs' reports and accused Prof. Copithorne of making use of "unverified and undocumented information." The mullahs' Deputy Chief of Judiciary also described the Special Representative's report as influenced by "international and regional political powers and trends." At the same time, the daily Kayhan urged the regime's leaders not to allow the Special Representative's visit to Iran.

After the parliamentary elections in Iran and the prominency of Khamenei's faction, the mullahs have found themselves in need of further escalation of repression within the country and terrorism without. Since the beginning of October, the state-run news agency and press have reported at least 36 executions. In the same period, three Iranian dissidents have been assassinated and another eight abducted in the Iraqi Kurdistan and Pakistan.

It is under such circumstances that the Khomeini regime's leaders and press impudently criticize the Special Representative for including but a small portion of the mullahs' crimes in his interim report, and prepare to sabotage his mandate. This is while the sources used by the Special Representative were mainly the regime's ratified laws and the remarks made by its officials, with the correspondences and responses of the mullahs' representatives appended to it.

As the NCR President, Mr. Massoud Rajavi, announced at the time of the release of the report, the Iranian Resistance urges the U.N. General Assembly to decisively condemn the crimes of the mullahs' regime and refer the issue of human rights violations in Iran to the U.N. Security Council. It is ever-more necessary to exert coordinated international pressure on Tehran's rulers to remove all obstacles in the way of fulfillment of the Special Representative's mandate and open out the mullahs' medieval prisons and torture centers.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran - Paris
November 14, 1996

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