UN Authority Figures

U.N. Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice: Iran

REUTERS/Fars News/Hasan Ghaedi The architect of the Iranian reform movement Saeed Hajjarian (R) and Saeed Shariati, a key member of Mosharekat party, sit as defendants accused of acting against national security in a courtroom in Tehran August 25, 2009. Iran put prominent reformers in the dock on Tuesday, official media reported, in its fourth mass trial of people accused of orchestrating unrest after June's disputed presidential election. Source: Reuters

Mission of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice: "The Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) is the United Nations body of Member States responsible for setting out global strategy to prevent crime and promote stable criminal justice systems. The 40-member UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice formulates international policies and recommends activities in the field of crime control...The Commission offers nations a forum for exchanging expertise and information on matters of crime prevention and criminal justice and to determine strategies and priorities for combatting crime at the global level....Priority areas mandated by the [Economic and Social] Council when it established the Commission in 1992 are: international action to combat national and transnational crime...and improving the efficiency and fairness of criminal justice administration systems." (Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice web-site)

Term of office: 2008-2015

Iran's Record on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice:
"There were reports that the government and its agents committed multiple acts of arbitrary or unlawful killings during the year...Major human rights and news organizations reported "systematic" torture of individuals after the election. Common methods of torture and abuse in prisons included prolonged solitary confinement with extreme sensory deprivation (sometimes called "white torture"), beatings, rape and sexual humiliation, long confinement in contorted positions, kicking detainees with military boots, hanging detainees by the arms and legs, threats of execution, burning with cigarettes, pulling out toenails, sleep deprivation, and severe and repeated beatings with cables or other instruments on the back and on the soles of the feet. Reported practices also included wetting prisoners before beating them with electric cables, to intensify the abuse. Prisoners also reported beatings on the ears, inducing partial or complete deafness; blows in the area around the eyes, leading to partial or complete blindness; and the use of poison to induce illness... Regular and paramilitary security forces committed numerous serious human rights abuses, but there were no transparent mechanisms to investigate security force abuses and no reports of government actions to reform the abusers...In practice the court system was corrupt and subject to government and religious influence...During the year human rights groups noted the absence of procedural safeguards in criminal trials...The government often charged individuals with vague crimes such as "antirevolutionary behavior," "moral corruption," and "siding with global arrogance." Prosecutors imposed strict penalties on government critics for minor violations... Secret or summary trials of only five minutes' duration frequently occurred. Other trials were deliberately designed to publicize a coerced confession." (US State Department's Country Report on Human Rights Practices 2009, Iran)