UNITED NATIONS - A U.N. panel has reprimanded Iran for a justice system that too often used torture, amputation, stoning and other forms of "cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment."

Adoption of the resolution by the General Assembly's social, humanitarian and cultural committee, comprised of all U.N. members, is tantamount to formal passage in the General Assembly by the end of the year. The assembly a year ago voted in favor of a similar measure.

The resolution expressed concern at the restrictions of freedom of expression, opinion and at "interference with the work of writers and journalists and closure of publications."

And the document worried that student demonstrators might be sentenced to death and called on Iran to ensure capital punishment would not be imposed.

New this year is a provision calling on Iran to ensure a "fair and transparent trial" for 13 Iranian Jews, including a rabbi and a 16-year-old boy, arrested in March on charges of spying for Israel.

And the committee's resolution again noted the "unabated pattern of persecution" including death sentences against the Baha'i, the country's largest religious minority, whose members are regarded as heretics by Iran.

The resolution was based on a report from Maurice Copithorne, a special investigator for the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, who said events of the last year revealed setbacks.

His report said that Iran from January to mid-August had seen "more political and social turmoil than in recent years," with 138 people executed and prisoners tortured.

"The protection and promotion of human rights has had a central role in the recent turmoil, and the human rights of the participants and bystanders have been in jeopardy," said Copithorne, who has not been able to visit Iran.
 

Public Hangings Continue After UN Body Censures Mullahs' Rights Violations, Iran Zamin News Agency, November 20

The state-run television announced today that two prisoners were hanged in the northeastern city of Mashad on the orders of the "revolutionary court." This is the third time in six days that the clerical regime's media announce executions and cruel punishment meted out to prisoners.

Tehran newspapers announced on Thursday, November 18, that two prisoners had been sentenced by the "revolutionary court" in Shiraz to have the right hand and left foot of each one amputated. On Monday, the state-run newspapers reported that ten people were hanged in the city of Arak, provincial capital of Iran's Central Province.

Today's hangings raise to 545 the number of executions that have been reported by the official press since Khatami became president in 1997.
 

Khamenei Strongly Rejects Ties With U.S., Reuters, November 18

TEHRAN - Mullahs' Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has strongly rejected ties with the United States, despite increasing calls for a review of Tehran's policy toward Washington, newspapers said Thursday.

"Petty and weak individuals want to subject the Iranian nation to the undignified state of some countries which are American protectorates," the daily Arya quoted Khamenei as saying Wednesday.

Khamenei, speaking to disabled veterans of the Iran-Iraq war, attacked the rival faction as "a group of newly arrived who were hiding during the war."
 

Khatami's Aid Calls for Destruction of Israel, State-run Daily Kayhan, November 9

… Ali Akbar Mohtashami, Political Aid to the President, in a gathering commemorating the 100^th birthday of Imam Khomeini in Damascus said: "… Destruction of the Zionist regime… is another one of the fundamentals of Islamic Revolution."
 

Officials and Press Slam Caspian Sea Pipeline, Agence France Presse, November 20

TEHRAN - Tehran officials and papers on Saturday slammed an agreement for pipelines from the resource-rich Caspian Sea to run through Turkey instead of Iran as a political and unprofitable move.

"By excluding Iran and Russia, the United States is exacting revenge on Iran for its opposition to the injustices perpetrated by Washington and Tel Aviv against the indigenous people of Palestine," said the Iran News.

The pipeline accords were signed on the sidelines of last week's Istanbul summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe by the presidents of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkmenistan.
 

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