U.N. anti-drugs chief praises Iran fight despite executions

[neversickanymore]

U.N. anti-drugs chief praises Iran fight despite executions
Reuters
March 11, 2014

VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. anti-drugs chief has praised Iran's fight against narcotics trafficking despite what human rights groups describe as a surge in executions in the country, many of people convicted of drug-related offences.

Yury Fedotov, executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), said the Vienna-based agency opposes the death penalty and he planned to raise the issue again with Iranian officials later this week.


"But on the other side, Iran takes a very active role to fight against illicit drugs," he told reporters before a international meeting in Vienna on March 13-14 on global efforts to combat narcotics.

In 2012, Iran seized 388 metric tons of opium, the equivalent of 72 percent of all such seizures around the world.

"It is very impressive," Fedotov said.

Because of a large number of executions, some countries - including Britain and Denmark - have in recent years stopped providing funding for UNODC drug control programs in Iran, diplomats say.

But Fedotov made clear the UNODC was not considering halting support for Iran.

"I don't believe that the international community would welcome this because it would mean, as a possible reaction from Iran, that all these huge quantities of drugs, which are now being seized by Iranians, would flow freely to Europe," he said.

Iran shares a long border with Afghanistan, which supplies about 90 percent of the world's opium, from which heroin is made. Iran says it has lost many security personnel in skirmishes with drug traffickers in volatile regions bordering also Pakistan.

On February 21, the United Nations said at least 80 people and perhaps as many as 95 had been executed in Iran so far this year.

Possession or transport of drugs, "even in relatively small amounts" of less than 500 grams, frequently leads to execution, Roya Boroumand, director of the U.S.-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation that tracks executions in Iran, said at the time.

Amnesty International said in mid-January that Iran had carried out 40 executions since the beginning of the year and that most of those executed had been convicted of alleged drug-related offences.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-iran-drugs-un-20140311,0,6200591.story

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So out of touch and desperate, a powerless group of prohibitionists made up of almost all law enforcement and pharmacists, praises Iran, a place so sinister it

Iran "leads the world in executing juvenile offenders – persons under 18 at the time of the crime" according to Human Rights Watch.[233] International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran states that of the 32 executions of juvenile offenders that have taken place in the world since January 2005,

Banning of women from universities

In Spring 2007, Iranian police launched a crackdown against women accused of not covering up enough, arresting hundreds of women, some for wearing too tight an overcoat or letting too much hair peek out from under their veil

In 2003, Iran elected not to become a member of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) since the convention contradicted the Islamic Sharia law in Clause A of its single article.[98]

The Internet has grown faster in Iran than any other Middle Eastern country (aside from Israel)[200] since 2000 but the government has censored dozens of websites it considers "non-Islamic" and harassed and imprisoned online journalists

On 8 May 2007 Haleh Esfandiari an Iranian American scholar in Iran visiting her 93-year-old mother, was detained in Evin Prison and kept in solitary confinement for more than 110 days.

On 28 February 2008, Amnesty International called on the Iranian government "to stop persecuting people" involved in the "One Million Signatures" campaign or "Campaign for Equality" – an attempt to collect one million signatures "for a petition to push for an end to discrimination against women

In Freedom House's 2013 press freedom survey, Iran was ranked "Not Free

According to Amnesty International report, after May 2006 widespread demonstrations related to Iran newspaper cockroach cartoon controversy in Iranian Azerbaijan hundreds were arrested and some reportedly killed by the security forces

As of 30 July 2009, dozens have reportedly been killed and hundreds arrested since the June 2009 elections

Unequal value for women's testimony compared to that of a man,[141] and traditional attitudes towards women's behavior and clothing as a way of explaining rape[142] have made conviction for rape of women difficult if not impossible in Iran

The Islamic government has not hesitated to crush peaceful political demonstrations. The Iran student riots, July 1999 were sparked by an attack by an estimated 400 paramilitary[126] Hezbollah vigilantes on a student dormitory in retaliation for a small, peaceful student demonstration against the closure of the reformist newspaper, Salam earlier that day. "At least 20 people were hospitalized and hundreds were arrested," in the attack.[127][128]
On 8 March 2004, the "parallel institution" of the Basij issued a violent crackdown on the activists celebrating International Women's Day in Tehran.

Iran retains the death penalty for a large number of offenses, among them cursing the Prophet, certain drug offenses, murder, and certain hadd crimes, including adultery, incest, rape, fornication, drinking alcohol, “sodomy,” same-sex sexual conduct between men without penetration, lesbianism, “being at enmity with God” (mohareb), and “corruption on earth” (Mofsed-e-filarz).[121]
Although it is a signatory to the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which states that "[the] sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age.”,[122] Iran continues to execute children for various offenses.
In 2008 at 346 confirmed executions were carried out in Iran.[123] In 2009, 252 people were officially executed but 300 more executions were unacknowledged by the government according to Human rights groups,[124]
In the first half of 2011, human rights groups estimated that an average of two people a day were being executed. Officially the executions are related to drug trafficking, but independent observers have questioned this claim.[124] An Iranian man, Gholamreza Khosravi Savadjani, was scheduled to be executed on 10 September 2012, on the charge of "enmity against God" (moharebeh) for his alleged support of a banned Iranian opposition group.[125]

As with many revolutions there were mass executions and killing of opponents during the early years of the Islamic Republic. Between January 1980 and the overthrow of President Abolhassan Banisadr in June 1981, at least 906 government opponents were executed.[101] From June 1981 to June 1985, at least 8,000 were executed.[17][102] Critics complained of brief trials lacking defense attorneys, juries, transparency or opportunity for the accused to defend themselves.[103] R.J. Rummel estimates that between 35,000 and 90,000 Iranians were killed by the state from 1979–87.[104] In 1988, several thousand political prisoners were executed, estimates ranging somewhere between 8,000[105] and 30,000.[106][107] Since the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini there have been fewer government sanctioned killings in Iran.

Nonetheless human rights groups and observers have complained that torture is frequently used on political prisoners in Iran. In a study of torture in Iran published in 1999, Iranian-born political historian Ervand Abrahamian included Iran along with "Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, and early modern Europe" of the Inquisition and witch hunts, as societies that "can be considered to be in a league of their own" in the systematic use of torture.[89]
Torture techniques used in the Islamic Republic include:
whipping, sometimes of the back but most often of the feet with the body tied on an iron bed; the qapani; deprivation of sleep; suspension from ceiling and high walls; twisting of forearms until they broke; crushing of hands and fingers between metal presses; insertion of sharp instruments under the fingernails; cigarette burns; submersion under water; standing in one place for hours on end; mock executions; and physical threats against family members. Of these, the most prevalent was the whipping of soles, obviously because it was explicitly sanctioned by the sharia.[90]
Two "innovations" in torture not borrowed from the Shah's regime were
the ‘coffin’, and compulsory watching of – and even participation in – executions. Some were placed in small cubicles, [50cm x 80cm x 140cm (20 inches x 31.5 inches x 55 inches)] blindfolded and in absolute silence, for 17-hour stretches with two 15-minute breaks for eating and going to the toilet. These stints could last months – until the prisoner agreed to the interview. Few avoided the interview and also remained sane. Others were forced to join firing squads and remove dead bodies. When they returned to their cells with blood dripping from their hands, Their roommates surmised what had transpired.

>source Human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran<


And there is more and more, for your board to praise a country that participates in this unjust, sick, and utterly unacceptable behavior shows you have lost your minds and should be replaced or disbanded. Please keep saying things that show the world what you are, who you align with, and how crazy you are.

Iran is a disgrace and so are you U.N. anti-drugs "chief".

 

[23536]

The UN does the craziest shit sometimes. Like, they keep putting Cuba on the Human Rights Council.

 

[ro4eva]

I wonder how many shots of Russian vodka the U.N. anti-drugs chief consumes every day.

What's fascinating about this idiot's praise for Iran's drug policies is that he - along with countless drug prohibitionists around the world (who happen to drink alcoholic beverages) would also be executed under Iran's drug laws.

 

[treezy z]

damn so it's cool to execute people as long as they (uselessly) seize some drugs.

 

[neversickanymore]

Not to mention a whole bunch of the people on the UN narcotics board are woman.. at least one is a christian.. yet Iran is getting props.. utter nonsense.

 

['medicine cabinet']

We dont support the death penalty, but....
Youre doing a great job iran!