How the Iranian government breaches its own constitution and still receives the praise of countries during the UN’s seventh Universal Periodic Review

The UN Human Rights Council carried out its seventh Universal Periodic Review on Iran, on February 15, 2010.[1] The UNHRC provided a world forum to country representatives, willing to express their official stand on Iran’s human rights profile and to make recommendations. A close analysis of the Draft Report of the Working Group on the Islamic Republic of Iran, where 53 delegations made statements, reveals certain patterns in the positions of some of the states that took part in the Working Group.[2] These particular states, as discussed below, did not acknowledge the latest human rights abuses in Iran. Just the contrary, they recognized progress on Iran’s human rights record. The failure to acknowledge the latest suspensions of human rights in the Islamic Republic demonstrates how states’ economic priorities of trading with the second biggest oil exporter in the world can effectively undermine the entire international human rights enforcement scheme.

Before discussing the states in question, it is worth mentioning two examples of the latest human rights violations in Iran. In the examples discussed below, the Iranian government suspends human rights by breaching provisions of the Iranian constitution. The use of judicial and military methods like prolonged imprisonment, forced confessions and the utility of legislative techniques aimed at reducing women’s civil rights, all contravene Iranian constitutional guarantees. According to unofficial statistics, there are more than 1000 political prisoners in Iran.[3] In contravention of article 37…

Continue reading this entry ➔

Islamic Hardliners Rattle Their Sabres in Aceh, Indonesia and the West Listens Attentively

Recent reports of the legislative passing of hardline Islamic laws in the Aceh province of Indonesia, including the punishment of stoning for adultery, have unnerved Western observers who believe that basic human rights will be ignored under such a system. While the laws are severely flawed, a closer look at Acehnese and Indonesian political and legal structures reveals that such strict punishments under the system are legally impossible to achieve.

Indonesia is a country of over 230 million people, spread out amongst 17,000 islands and islets along an archipelago that stretches for more than 5,000 kilometres. The province of Aceh, lying at the archipelago’s most westward tip, is itself a diverse region, where some fifteen languages are spoken, and where, for the better part of 150 years, conflict and outright war have been the norm.

Islam came to Aceh in the 9th century. It has long been a unifying force throughout the country, but the Acehnese people in particular focus on Islam as a defining characteristic of their identity. As such, the creation of a system of Islamic law (Syariah in Bahasa-Indonesia) was a central factor of the peace plan agreed to by the Acehnese liberation group Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM). However, it must be noted here that GAM was a purely secular movement, and that the achievement of Syariah was just one of many negotiation goals – and one that was proposed by the Indonesian…

Continue reading this entry ➔