Iran Human Rights Rapporteur Given Extra Year

The United Nations Human Rights Council has extended the mandate of the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights in Iran Javaid Rehman.

Member states voted to extend Rehman’s role for a further year at the 49th session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) Friday, along with similar mandates for North Korea and Myanmar.

The council requested Rehman, a law professor at London’s Brunel University, to submit a report to the UN General Assembly at its 77th session in September 2022, and to the HRC’s 52nd session in February-March 2023.

“The renewal of this mandate is essential in light of the persistence of a pattern of serious human rights violations and international crimes committed by Iranian authorities, as extensively documented by civil society monitors and by the Special Rapporteur,” read a letter to the HRC from Iranian and international human rights organizations.

Later on Friday, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh rejected the UN resolution on the human rights situation in the country, saying it was drafted by Britain and other Western countries based on groundless claims and incorrect information and is “devoid of any legal validity”.

Rehman was appointed as the third rapporteur on Iran July 6, 2018, following Asma Jahangir and Ahmed Shaheed. The HRC had re-established the mandate of a rapporteur on Iran’s human rights situation in 2011 after terminated an earlier one in 2002.