Mr. Rajavi said the report was yet another document confirming that the mullahs' religious, terrorist dictatorship is not prone to reform. It reaffirmed the need to expel Tehran's clerical regime from the international community and that the time had come for the UN Security Council to adopt binding decisions in this regard, he added.
The U.N. Human Rights Commission's Special Representative on Iran, Professor Maurice Danby Copithorne, said in his report that he was "deeply concerned" over the dramatic rise in the number of publicly announced executions in the first nine months of this year (a total of 137 cases), the disappearances and deaths under suspicious circumstances of opponents inside the country and the "cruel and inhuman punishment of stoning" by the mullahs' regime.
It is emphasized in the Special Representative's report that the regime's "laws and its policies, do not recognize the equality at law of men and women," and "frequently tolerates discrimination against women by private groups."
Referring to the verdicts by the courts of Berlin and Istanbul which confirmed the role of the mullahs' senior leaders and "agents of the Iranian intelligence service" in extra-territorial killings of dissidents, the Special Representative "condemns such acts and calls upon the Government to denounce such violence and forswear direct or indirect involvement in it."
Mr. Rajavi added: Nevertheless, the report keeps silent over the deteriorating conditions of political prisoners and their secret executions, the forced disappearances of released prisoners, and the increasing wave of arrests across the country. Neither does the report make any references to the crackdown on demonstrations and popular protests, including the demonstrations in August in Fars province and East Tehran, and the demonstration in May in Sedeh, Isfahan, and the protest in October in Kashan, during which hundreds of people were killed, wounded or arrested by the State Security Forces.
The NCR President expressed surprise that the report had described the mullahs' election farce as a "real choice" and had noted that "the declaration of the intentions of the new Government in most if not all the areas captured in the concept of human rights."
Mr. Rajavi pointed out: How can one speak of "real choice" in the absence of any international monitoring and while the few hand-picked candidates running in the elections were absolutely loyal to the Vali-e Faqih? Furthermore, a major portion of the atrocities mentioned in the report, including 52 executions in public, were carried out during Khatami's tenure.
Mr. Rajavi reiterated that the practice of the atrocious and medieval punishment of stoning not only had not diminished but according to the state run press reports on October 26, six persons were simultaneously stoned in one instance in the city of Sari, northern Iran.
The NCR President added: Six months after Khatami's election, there has not been the slightest change in the conduct of Iran's ruling theocracy. The experience of the past 18 years has demonstrated that pinning hope on "changes that are long overdue," is nothing but a mirage. Khatami has neither the interest not the power to initiate any change or reform in the absolute rule of the Vali-e Faqih.
Noting that the number of executions had doubled compared to 1996 and quadrupled compared to 1995, Mr. Rajavi called on the current session of the General Assembly to strongly condemn such inhuman crimes against the Iranian people, and to urge the United Nations Security Council to adopt binding decisions to bring a halt to the persistent violations of human rights by the clerical regime.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran - Paris
November 5, 1997
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