The Pasdaran: Iran's Revolutionary Guards

The Regime's Shadow Warriors

Revolutionary Guards Keep Stranglehold on Iran

By Dieter Bednarz and Erich Follath, 16 February 2010

Iran's Revolutionary Guards, also known as the Pasdaran, are the regime's most important source of support. The powerful militia organization puts down street protests, spies on opposition members and controls the nuclear program. They are also the target of planned new United Nations sanctions.

Can 44 Nobel Prize winners be wrong?

The group of Nobel laureates, which included such luminaries as Nobel Peace laureates Betty Williams and Jody Williams, the writer Wole Soyinka and the economist James Heckman, as well as many leading figures from the fields of medicine, chemistry and physics, made a dramatic appeal in a full-page ad published in the International Herald Tribune on Feb. 9. "Dear President Obama, President Sarkozy, President Medvedev, Prime Minister Brown and Chancellor Merkel," it began. "How long can we stand idly by and watch this scandal in Iran unfold?"

In their appeal, the 44 laureates called upon the world leaders to finally respond to the atrocities of the Iranian regime, with its "irresponsible and senseless nuclear ambitions," with sharper sanctions, and to throw their full support behind Iranian opposition protesters. "They deserve nothing less," the open letter ends. The ad was paid for by the human rights foundation of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize.

Various politicians promptly responded, each in his own way, to the unusual appeal. US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that the only option left was to apply pressure on Iran, while French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said: "Because negotiations are impossible, only sanctions remain." Israeli politicians and the influential US Senator Joe Lieberman, an independent, support a military solution. It appears that the nuclear conflict with Tehran has been escalated to a new level.

Cat and Mouse

It was preceded by a roller-coaster week that began with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's surprising indication of a willingness to compromise. But then Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki set new preconditions for a deal and strengthened the impression, at the Munich Security Conference, that Iran was back to playing cat-and-mouse with the West and planned to push forward with its suspected military nuclear program.

Ahmadinejad broke off all negotiation efforts until further notice. He instructed his scientists to ramp up a portion of the production designed for 3.5-percent uranium enrichment, allegedly to produce isotopes for medical purposes. Although 90-percent enriched uranium is needed for a functioning nuclear weapon, the production of 20-percent enriched uranium that has now been approved "brings Tehran an important step closer to weapons-grade fissile material," says US nuclear expert David Albright, noting that the Iranian scientists now have "only a tenth of the way" to go to make a bomb.

Can sanctions deter the Iranian agitators from building the bomb, or will the world have to live with Iran as a nuclear power? The rulers in Tehran have already survived three rounds of UN sanctions without any apparent effect, which raises the question of what "smart" sanctions must look like to sharply penalize the representatives of the government while harming the Iranian people as little as possible.

Under the chairmanship of France, the UN Security Council will begin negotiations on the issue next week, and it is expected to approve sanctions before the end of March. The prospects of getting Moscow on board appear to be good, but whether the People's Republic of China, which has signed billions of dollars' worth of natural resource deals with Tehran, will play along is questionable.

The Extended Arm of the Regime

The only thing that is clear is the target of the sanctions, which are intended to strike primarily at an organization that is both powerful and clouded in secrecy: the Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Enghelab-e Islami, or Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, which has defended the theocracy against its enemies -- including its domestic opponents -- for the past 30 years. Like an octopus, the Pasdaran, also know as the Revolutionary Guards, has its arms extended into all of Iran's key power centers. It controls important economic sectors, including the nuclear industry, and it is more effective than the regular army. Wherever it goes, it acts as the extended arm of the regime.

The elite militia force demonstrated its clout once again on Thursday of last week, when it relentlessly hunted down opposition members who were using the show of government propaganda surrounding the 31st anniversary of the revolution to stage protests against the regime. Opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi was attacked. When it comes to the legacy of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Pasdaran knows no mercy.

It was Khomeini himself, the man who brought down the shah, who ordered the establishment of the Revolutionary Guards on May 5, 1979. With this "people's army," Khomeini wanted to create a counterweight to the military, which had been built up by Shah Mohammad Reza. Unlike the soldiers, who tended to be secular, the Revolutionary Guards were all religious zealots and sworn supporters of their leader.

'One of the World's Most Powerful Cartels'

Mohsen Sazegara, 55, is a former close associate of Khomeini who was one of the original Pasdaran leaders. Today, from his exile in the United States, he is one of the organization's harshest critics. The original plan was to establish a group of 500 officers who were to lead about half a million volunteers, Sazegara says. But today the Revolutionary Guards are much more than just a militia. "The Pasdaran is a unique mixture of army and militia, terrorist organization and mafia -- a state within a state," he told SPIEGEL.

The Pasdaran's rise to become what Sazegara calls "one of the world's most powerful cartels" began in 1981, under the command of Mohsen Rezai, who led the Revolutionary Guards for 16 years. The general took advantage of the war Iraq had instigated against Iran to expand the militia into an extremely well-armed auxiliary army. The organization soon had its own intelligence service, which collected information about regime critics and took action against suspected subversives.

The Quds Force, named after the Arab name for Jerusalem, became legendary, and it is still responsible for operations in enemy territory today. President Ahmadinejad was a member of the Quds Force in the war against Saddam Hussein, and he is believed to have led operations in the Kurdish region. Members of the Quds Force are also believed to have later been involved in the murders of opposition members abroad. The group cooperates with other extremist organizations, including Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Iran's Most Powerful General

From the beginning, one man oversaw the Pasdaran and promoted its rise to power: Ayatollah Khamenei, Khomeini's personal representative and successor who has been Iran's supreme leader for the last 20 years. He recognized early on that the Revolutionary Guards could become his most important source of support, and he made sure that it received privileges right from the start of his time in office.

The Pasdaran now counts 125,000 men, making it about a third the size of the regular army. Nevertheless, its leader, Mohammad Ali Jafari, is indisputably the most powerful general in the country. He also controls 300,000 reservists and, more important, the fanatics of the voluntary Basij militia, which has an estimated 100,000 members. In times of crisis, however, the Basij is believed to be able to muster up to 1 million activists. It is these "moral police" who, under the command of the Pasdaran, have been most active in violently assaulting the opposition since last summer.

The general has become the backbone of the regime. Unlike his counterparts in the regular army, Jafari also controls a gigantic economic empire. The Pasdaran has ruthlessly hijacked the economy of its own country, with the support of its leader Khamenei. No one knows how many companies the Revolutionary Guard has already taken over, but co-founder Mohsen Sazegara estimates that it "controls more than 100 different businesses" -- from export companies for household goods to producers of automobile spare parts. The Pasdaran is believed to have established more than 500 offices of Iranian companies worldwide.

According to the People's Mujahedeen of Iran, which opposes the regime from abroad, the Revolutionary Guard controls more than half of the entire import business and close to a third of Iran's export business -- which doesn't include its holdings in the lucrative oil business, with estimated annual profits of $5 billion. Conveniently, it also controls the country's biggest container port, Bandar Abbas, and the airport in the capital Tehran.

Lucrative Business Interests

A profit center of the Pasdaran conglomerate of trading companies and industrial plants is Khatam al-Anbiya, a construction company that employs and pays 55,000 members of the Pasdaran and Basij. The company began its business by expanding roads and military positions in the war, and then it built barracks for the army and runways for the air force. Today Khatam is a mixed conglomerate with about 800 holdings and subcontractors, and estimated annual sales of $7 billion. On Wednesday of last week, the United States expanded its existing sanctions against Khatam to include four subsidiaries.

To penetrate into the highly lucrative oil business, the Pasdaran has not shied away from waging small private wars. Iranian business owners in Tehran still remember how, in August 2006, Revolutionary Guards, their weapons at the ready, took a military boat out to the Orizont drilling platform and boarded the platform. A short time later, the largest privately owner Iranian oil producer abandoned the well, and from then on the proceeds from Orizont's oil went directly into the coffers of the Pasdaran.

Last fall, the militia leaders discovered the communications industry as a profitable area of business. A consortium affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard acquired a majority stake in Telecom Iran. As a result, the Guard now controls the fixed network, two mobile telephone companies and Internet providers, and it is now expanding its role in one of the country's biggest growth markets.

Most of all, however, the Guard has taken over politics, in what Tehran-based political scientist Davoud Bovand calls a "gradual military coup." While many Iranians were pinning their hopes for liberalization on reformist Mohammad Khatami, who was president of Iran from 1997 to 2005, the Guard, with the blessing of its patron Khamenei, prepared to strike back -- and in 2005 helped Ahmadinejad become president. In his first administration, five of the 21 cabinet posts went to members of the Pasdaran, and the group received lucrative contracts from the government, including the construction of a pipeline to Pakistan. In Ahmadinejad's new government, Revolutionary Guard members received 13 cabinet posts.

Nuclear Responsibilities

The manager of the world's third-largest oil reserves is Oil Minister Masoud Mir-Kazemi, the Revolutionary Guard's former head of logistics, who had already exhibited little aptitude during his previous four-year post as trade minister. The Pasdaran is believed to have recently diverted $7 billion from oil revenues.

The Pasdaran also controls a third of the Iranian parliament, the Majlis. Ali Larijani, speaker of the parliament and previously Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, was formerly a high-ranking officer in the Revolutionary Guard, as is his successor as chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili. It makes sense that both men are former Pasdaran members, because the organization has a particularly large stake in the nuclear projects.

Its companies are charged with building the hidden tunnels, such as those at the planned enrichment facility near Qom. Its scientists are enriching the uranium, its elite troops are protecting the nuclear plants and its leaders are warning the United States and its ally Israel against attacks. "If their fighter jets manage to evade the Iranian air defense system," the head of the Pasdaran air force, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said, "our surface-to-surface missiles will destroy their bases before they land." Iran's secret nuclear program, the subject of a recent SPIEGEL report based on classified documents, is run by Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who is a high-ranking officer in the Revolutionary Guard.

New Sanctions

The UN sanctions could go beyond previous punitive measures by personally affecting senior members of the Revolutionary Guard -- in the form of travel bans for Western countries and the freezing of bank accounts. Sanctions against Pasdaran-owned companies could put a stop to urgently needed investments in the oil industry, while a general freeze on banks could even cripple the country. Many Iranians are already emptying out their accounts, and inflation is apparently as high as 25 percent.

In the past, neither new threats of sanctions nor mass protests and street battles could deter the zealots surrounding Khamenei and his supporters. In his propaganda speech on the anniversary of the Revolution, Ahmadinejad defiantly announced new successes: "Thanks to the grace of God," he said, the first batch of uranium had already been enriched to 20 percent.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

Credits: Der Spiegel Online: The Regime's Shadow Warriors

Iranian official defiant against international condemnation of Human Rights violations by Iran

Iran official: Clinton 'inconsistent'

February 17, 2010

The Secretary General of Iran's High Council for Human Rights, Mohammad Javad Larijani, on the AMANPOUR. set

By Tom Evans; Sr. Writer, AMANPOUR.

(CNN) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's policy on Iran is "dubious, inconsistent, and naive," one of Iran's most influential officials declared Tuesday.

Mohammad Javad Larijani, a member of a powerful political clan in Iran, rejected an assertion by Clinton on Monday that the Revolutionary Guard is supplanting the Iranian government, and Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship. One of Larijani's brothers is speaker of the Iranian parliament and another is head of Iran's judiciary.

"On the one hand she (Clinton) is worried about democracy in Iran, on the other hand she's offering the most generous military help to states which don't run a single election," Larijani told CNN's Christiane Amanpour just after Clinton had completed a three-day tour of Arab countries in the Persian Gulf.

Larijani said the Revolutionary Guard, which has extensive business interests in Iran, is answerable to legal structures of the state.

"The Revolutionary Guard is part of our defense system, they have a legal status, they have a legal command, and they are legally answerable to Parliament," he added.

Larijani, whose title is secretary general of the Iranian High Council for Human Rights, also rejected Western criticism of Iran's rights record, declaring that his country is "the greatest and ... only democracy in the Middle East."

He said he explained Iran's position in full this week to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, where the U.S., Britain, France and other nations strongly attacked Tehran's record, as they stepped up pressure for new international sanctions against Iran over its nuclear ambitions.

"It is true that the United States and a number of Western countries aired their criticism toward us, but it was mostly a kind of cliche," Larijani said.

"But on the other side, a lot of nations also supported and commended our position," he added - a reference to countries including Cuba, Venezuela, and Sri Lanka.

Despite the government's massive crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators since the disputed presidential election in June last year, Larijani said Tuesday that no one is jailed because of protests in Iran.

"The only reason for jailing is the violence which was attached to the protests, a violence which got the life of more than 20 policemen and 13 civilians and also damaged the properties and also people's life and health," he asserted.

"I think the beating of our police is much less than the New York and Los Angeles police ... the violence in Tehran was much less that the violence in Paris.. (which) was in flames for three months."

He also rejected criticism of Iran's policy on executing people who, he said, were engaged in violence. "Those who indulge in terrorist activities, they are pursued by the law. They will face a very harsh sentence, if it is proved by the court."

Larijani acknowledged that official wrongdoing and unlawful acts do occasionally happen in Iran, but insisted the authorities take quick action to address problems when they are identified. He cited the example of what happened after the deaths of three protesters who were jailed at the Kahrizak Detention Center in Tehran. One of those who died was the son of a leading conservative politician.

He said the prosecutor-general, Saeed Mortazavi, who was linked to those deaths by a parliamentary committee could now face further investigation by the judicial authorities.

"Nobody will replace the court and their final decision," Larijani asserted.

Credits: Amanpour/CNN: Iran official: Clinton "inconsistent"

United Nations calls on Iran to release political prisoners

Iran rejects U.N. call to free political prisoners

GENEVA (Reuters) - Iran rejected calls to release all political prisoners and accept an international inquiry into violence after last June's contested presidential elections, an official U.N. report said.

WORLD (Editing by Louise Ireland and Jonathan Lynn) Feb 17, 2010

The Islamic Republic also refused to end the death penalty and said it would not make torture as an offence under its laws, according to the report on a discussion of its rights record in the world body's Human Rights Council.

In the discussion, held on Monday as part of the Universal Permanent Review (UPR) process which all U.N. members undergo every four years, it said many recommendations, including one from Chile urging guarantees of political and civil rights for all, including dissidents, were already in effect.

In Wednesday's report, approved by the 47-member Council, Iran had already declared it was an open democracy under the rule of law, pledged it would comply fully with international rights pacts and ensure that torture was eliminated.

The Council also registered Iranian promises to ensure religious freedom, freedom of expression and the right to demonstrate peacefully.

Critics of the UPR system, including many activist NGOs, say it gives too much room for countries to fend off detailed criticism on specific issues and allows them to make vague promises of future action.

"The proof of this pudding produced today will be in the eating," said one European diplomat asking for anonymity in referring to the Iran report. "We have seen promises like this before, but not much action to follow them up."

Despite agreeing to a Netherlands recommendation to "take measures to ensure that no torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment takes place," Iran rejected another from Spain to sign the U.N. anti-torture pact.

And it rejected a U.S. proposal that it allow the U.N. special investigator on torture, Austrian lawyer Manfred Nowak, to visit the country and have access to detention facilities -- although it has accepted a visit next year by Human Rights High Commissioner Navi Pillay.

Asserting earlier that the Iranian media was free and that the state did not block access to the Internet, it dismissed recommendations to "end severe restrictions on the right to free expression" and to stop harassment of journalists.

The Council has no mechanism to enforce implementation of pledges made in the UPR process, although countries are expected to report back on what they are doing.

Credits: Reuters: Iran rejects U.N. call to free political prisoners

Over 65 reporters face spying charges in Iran: rights group

(AFP) – Feb 16, 2010

UNITED NATIONS — More than 65 journalists, bloggers and writers have been detained in Iran since last June's disputed presidential polls and could be tried on charges of "spying" for the foreign media, a New York-based media rights group said Tuesday.

"The picture (in Iran) is pretty gloomy," Robert Mahoney, deputy director of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) told a press conference here as he presented a worldwide 2009 survey titled "Attacks on the Press in 2009" and highlighted the detentions in Iran.

Maziar Bahari, an Iranian-Canadian correspondent for Newsweek who was jailed in Iran in June and released four months later, also told reporters that more than 100 journalists, bloggers and writers had been arrested at different periods since the elections, including the more than 65 who were still behind bars.

"They can all be accused of spying for the foreign media," he said, noting that spying carries the death penalty in Iran.

"The government has no respect for the privacy of individuals," Bahari said. "The strategy of the Iranian government is to make everyone's life, especially journalists' lives, insecure."

And in an alarming development, Mahoney said Iranian authorities were now using online social networks such as Facebook to target journalists and dissidents.

"The Iranian government is now using (Facebook) to go after and find dissidents and journalists, mining their data, seeing who their friends are,' he added. "They are turning the technology that should liberate the press against the press. This is a worrying trend."

Mahoney said the CPJ was "monitoring more and more closely the government's attempt to censor and filter content online, to surveille journalists, to get into their contact books and generally try to disrupt their ability to use the internet as a tool for freedom of expression."

Last week, the United States also accused Iran of trying "a near total information blockade" to deal with anti-government protesters, calling the move unprecedented.

Based on US monitoring of networks and other information, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said it appeared that "Iran has attempted a near total information blockade."

He added that his statement was based on US monitoring that showed the phone network was taken down, text messages blocked, satellite television jammed and the Internet "throttled."

Credits: AFP: Over 65 reporters face spying charges in Iran: rights group

Nobel laureate Ebadi calls for sanctions on Iran

GENEVA (Reuters) - Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi urged countries on Friday to impose political sanctions on Iran by downgrading diplomatic ties and denying visas to officials, but rejected economic sanctions as hurting the Iranian people.

Ebadi said the rights situation was deteriorating rapidly and accused security forces of violently suppressing peaceful protests against what the opposition says was the fraudulent re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last year.

"I am against economic sanctions and military attacks. However, if the Iranian government continues to violate human rights and ignore people's demands, then I start thinking about political sanctions," Ebadi told a human rights forum on Iran.

"Do not sell weapons to the Iranian government," she added.

Ebadi, speaking to Reuters afterwards, made clear that political sanctions should be imposed "the sooner the better, because human rights violations in Iran are growing every day."

"I don't mean cutting ties off totally with the Iranian government. What I mean is downgrading ties with the Iranian government, for example recalling respective ambassadors from Iran, downgrading diplomatic relations from the ambassador level to the charge d'affaires or consular level.

"In that way, it is not a total severing of ties but you manage to demonstrate to the Iranian people that human rights is respected and considered (as being) of the utmost importance by you," she said through an interpreter.

"Do not give visas to any government officials or any delegations representing the government," she told Reuters.

The Islamic state is facing growing Western calls for a fourth round of targeted U.N. sanctions after it stepped up enrichment of uranium the West suspects is intended for nuclear weapons. Tehran says it plans only civilian uses.

CIRCUMVENTING SANCTIONS

Ebadi said existing economic sanctions hurt ordinary Iranians rather than the elite. "Sadly, thanks to the support of China and Russia, the Iranian government has a way of circumventing these sanctions. Therefore such economic sanctions will only affect the people.

"Wider economic sanctions only hurt innocent people and we are against that," she said.

Iranian authorities say last year's presidential poll was fair. Hundreds of thousands of government supporters turned out on Thursday to mark the anniversary of the Islamic revolution.

Human rights defenders, journalists and lawyers have been arrested during eight months of protests and more than 50 people from the minority Baha'i faith are in prison, Ebadi said.

The Iranian government controls Internet and phone access and jams western broadcasts to cut off activists, said Iran's most famous human rights lawyer, whose influence in the country of 70 million is seen as limited.

Ebadi disclosed she had urged U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay to find a solution "before Iran becomes another Zimbabwe."

Ebadi was addressing a preliminary forum for Monday's U.N. Human Rights Council session, when Iran will be in the dock in a periodic examination of member states' records.

Amnesty International said on Friday at least 5,000 activists and their families had been arrested in the political turmoil. Many had been subjected to torture or ill-treatment.

"Security forces, especially the Basij militia, beat protesters, use tear gas in confined space and use live ammunition. All this is done with impunity," said Esteban Beltran of Amnesty.

He denounced "flogging, blinding, and amputations" of prisoners and executions of people who had committed crimes as juveniles.

U.S. and other Western diplomats queued overnight on Thursday to reserve a spot to address the U.N. forum, fearing Iran's allies would book up places first thing on Friday morning, diplomats said. In all, 60 delegations will speak.

"We expect it to be a fairly heated debate. Everything will depend on how Iran reacts," one Western diplomat told Reuters.

(Editing by Andrew Roche)

Credits: Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61B3JY20100212

Ebadi: Iran abusing rights on many fronts

By Shirin Ebadi, Special to CNN

February 8, 2010 9:35 p.m. EST

Shirin Ebadi speaks in Belgium after the disputed 2009 Iranian elections.

Editor's note: Dr. Shirin Ebadi, Human Rights Advocate and 2003 Nobel Laureate, writes an Open Letter to Honorable Madam Navanethem Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and members of the United Nations Human Rights Council

(CNN) -- Although I have already highlighted the deteriorating human rights situation in Iran on several occasions in writing and in person, I deem it necessary to once again draw the attention of Your Honor and the distinguished members of the UNHRC to the following issues as you prepare to review the Islamic Republic of Iran's human rights record, on February 15, 2010.

My compatriots have endured a difficult period. Their peaceful protests were responded with bullets and imprisonment. Many photographs and witnesses corroborate the government's violence, not to mention instances when sufficient facts and evidence were presented to the authorities and public that revealed the identity of the killers.

Sadly, however, the Judiciary and other state officials have not taken any steps to arrest the killers or even reduce the level of violence.

A large number of political, civil, and even cultural, activists have been arrested on unfounded charges. Some of them were sentenced to death after summary trials behind closed doors.

So far, based on official figures released by the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, four of them have been executed and more than 25 others are awaiting their impending fate.

Political prisoners are treated so badly that some have died in jail and under torture. These prisoners are even deprived of the rights afforded by law to ordinary and dangerous inmates.

The defenseless people of Iran are continuing to resist and insist on the realization of their just demands for democracy and human rights.
--Dr. Shirin Ebadi

There are some whose conditions are very serious because of old age and illness. They include Dr Ebrahim Yazdi, Dr Mohammad Maleki, and engineer Behzad Nabavi. The first two are almost 80 years of age and are suffering from cancer, while the third is suffering from heart problems.

They receive no medical care and, because of the unsanitary prison conditions, there are fears that they could die at any moment.

Tragically, the number of political prisoners who are ill and in need of medical treatment is not limited to these three; there are more than 60 political prisoners who need to be hospitalized.

Iran has turned into a big prison for journalists whose only crime is to disseminate information. There are currently 63 reporters and photojournalists in Iran's prisons. Iranian students are imprisoned or barred from education for making the slightest political criticism.

Iranian women who seek equal rights are charged with conspiring to overthrow the Islamic Republic; criminal proceedings have been instituted against more than 100 of these women.

Workers and teachers have been accused of causing riots and disorder because they were trade union members and had protested against their low wages. Some of them have been imprisoned, and many have lost their jobs.

Not only non-Muslims are persecuted -- such as members of the Baha'i faith who, since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, have not even been allowed to study at university -- but even the followers of Iran's official religion, Shi'ite Islam, have not been immune from government repression; as an example, one could cite the persecution and detention of the Gonabad Dervishes [who practice the Sufi tradition of Islam].

Even more appallingly, they have recently embarked on yet another means of exerting pressure on political and social activists, which is to take one or a few of their relatives hostage.

In so doing, they aim to attain their illegitimate objectives through putting psychological pressure on the activists. In that regard, one could point to the arrest of two daughters of a human rights activist Mr. Tavassoli. Sadly, so far eight families have been victims of the same phenomenon.

Meanwhile, the plight of human rights defenders is the worst because the authorities do not want any reports whatsoever on the human rights violations in Iran to leave the country.

As a result, most of the known activists in Iran are either in prison or barred from traveling abroad; or they have been forced underground and into hiding. More distressingly, indictments have been issued against some of them for Moharebeh (waging war against God), which is punishable by death.

Under such circumstances, the defenseless people of Iran are continuing to resist and insist on the realization of their just demands for democracy and human rights by demonstrating their political maturity through peaceful protests.

My question to you in your capacity as representatives of UNHRC member states is this: For how much longer do you believe that you could urge young people to remain calm? The patience and tolerance of Iranian people, however high, is not infinite.

A recurrence of the recent months' events, the continuation of the repressive policies, and the killing of defenseless people, could bring about a catastrophe that may undermine peace and security in Iran, if not in the entire region.

So, I urge you, yet again, to use whatever means possible to convince the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to abide by the resolutions adopted by the U.N. General Assembly, in particular the resolution of December 2009; to allow human rights rapporteurs, especially those who deal with arbitrary arrests, freedom of expression, religion and women's rights, to enter Iran, and to cooperate with them.

I also urge you to appoint a special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran, who would be able to continuously monitor the government's conduct and, by offering prompt advice and suggestions, help end the political crisis and mounting repression.

My honorable friends! Please bear in mind that we are all responsible and accountable to history. God forbid, lest we stand ashamed before a defenseless nation because of our political complicities.

Credits: CNN: Ebadi: Iran abusing rights on many fronts