Paying attention to human rights in Iran by international institutions has always been a challenge due to the policies and regimes governing the country. The political leaders of Iran, with a feudalistic view towards the Iranian people, consider any critical perspective on human rights as interference in their internal affairs.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted on December 10, 1948, with 48 votes in favor, no votes against, and 8 absent representatives. Iran was among the first signatories of this declaration.

Only five years after the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the Shah’s government in Iran, with the overthrow of the Mohammad Mossadegh government and the coup of August 28th, the government became more obsessed with strengthening its own foundations. All leftist groups and the National Front were subject to persecution and leaders and most activists of the National Front were arrested. According to foreign media reports, more than 4,000 political activists of the Tudeh Party were arrested throughout the country, including 477 officers who were members of the party’s army committee. 40 of the detainees, mostly military personnel, were executed, and 200 were sentenced to life imprisonment, although many of these sentences were later revoked. According to reports, 14 people were killed during interrogations.

Despite the efforts and hard work of many political activists, these reports were only reflected in some European media and did not receive much attention among Western countries, perhaps because most of the suppressed individuals were affiliated with the Iranian Communist Party.

During the first decade of the 1960s, the Pahlavi government initiated extensive social reforms, which familiarized women, villagers, and religious minorities with their rights. Western governments supported these reforms and presented a favorable image of the Iranian government in the West. Apart from the events of June 5, 1963 (15 Khordad 1342), there was not much opposition against the government. However, the reality was that due to the increasing costs of political activities, fewer people were willing to enter this field.

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After the coup d’état on August 19, 1953, some members of the Tudeh Party were arrested.

In such an environment, where the first World Human Rights Conference was held in Tehran in 1968, the presence of prominent human rights figures and Nobel Peace Prize winners provided a great opportunity to improve the image of human rights in the government. In addition, the Iranian government actively participated in most international human rights conferences.

It must be acknowledged that despite the fact that the Shah had initiated modernization in the economic and social spheres, resulting in the growth of a new middle class and industrial working class, he was unsuccessful in another area – the political sphere. In the midst of the years 1970 to 1976, opposition groups to the government, inspired by armed movements in other parts of the world, entered a phase of armed struggle. The “Black Friday” incident marked the beginning of fierce clashes between the Savak and security forces with the opposition.

For the first time in late 1970, Amnesty International addressed the situation of political and security prisoners in Iran by publishing a report. The report mentioned 300 cases of executions, as well as the issue of torture in Iranian prisons. This may have been the first international reaction to the human rights situation in Iran, and with the efforts of Iranian student confederations and independent journalists, news of the situation of political prisoners was increasingly reflected in free media outlets.

According to reports from Amnesty International in 1975, 22 poets, writers, directors, and university professors were imprisoned. The report also mentioned well-known individuals who were severely reprimanded for disobeying the orders of the security apparatus. In late that year, Amnesty International released a detailed report declaring the human rights situation in Iran as dire. This report was heavily covered by Western media and sparked widespread discussions. During this time, international campaigns for the release of political prisoners also angered the government. The International Commission of Jurists in Geneva and the United Nations Commission on Human Rights both condemned the Iranian government for severe human rights violations. Along with the criticism from human rights organizations, Iranian students and opposition groups outside the country formed special committees and organized demonstrations to expose the activities of SAVAK. As a result, influential Western newspapers such as “The Sunday Times” in London published articles revealing the workings of SAVAK. In the context of the 1976 US presidential election, Jimmy Carter

In this moment in time, despite opposition from Savak, the government ultimately allowed representatives from the Red Cross to enter. Former Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Ali Khalatbari says, “When articles and statements were published in newspapers and various organizations in different countries about the number of political prisoners in Iran, the conditions of prisons, and the inhumane treatment of political prisoners, the International Red Cross Committee requested to visit Iranian prisons and prepare a report for Iranian authorities based on international agreements. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in respect of its international obligations, agreed to this request, but Savak opposed it. Finally, my opinion was approved by the king and Savak was informed to allow the Red Cross representatives to enter prisons and release them for their investigations. As a result, three delegations visited prisons at various times.” (1)

The result of the visit of the Red Cross representatives was the formation of dirty files from Iranian prisons against Savak and the security apparatus, which later led to the condemnation of the Pahlavi government in international forums.

During the last years of the Pahlavi government, the government declared an open political space and granted extensive freedom to newspapers and civil society activists. According to many loyalists of the Pahlavi government, this open political space was the beginning of the downfall of the monarchy system.

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The bodies of four leaders of the Pahlavi government who were executed on the rooftop of the Refah School: Manouchehr Khosrodad (top left), Mehdi…
Rahimi (top right), Rasanaaji (bottom left), Naematollah Nasiri (bottom right)

With the victory of the opposition and the overthrow of the Pahlavi government, it was expected that new measures would be taken against the opposition and former government leaders, but the executions in the early days of the revolution showed that human rights were not respected by the new rulers either. By the order of Sadeq Khalkhali, the judge of the revolutionary court, more than 200 high-ranking officials of the former government were executed within two months after the revolution through the orders of the revolutionary courts. International human rights organizations protested against these massacres and condemned the leaders of the revolution and the new government.

The delegation of the International Amnesty Organization, which had received permission to enter and investigate the situation of prisons and courts by the interim government, published a detailed report in June 1979, during their first and last trip to Iran, which indicated “murder”, “torture”, “execution” and non-judicial courts, etc.

According to this report, only in the first four months after the revolution, more than 100,000 people were tried and out of this number, hundreds were executed and thousands were awaiting execution. The executions of summer 1979 in the military attack on Kurdistan, the massacre of the 1960s in prisons and streets of Iran, and finally the mass killing of political prisoners in 1988 (1367), were all events that raised concerns among international human rights organizations about what was happening in Iran. In all the early years of the new government, the Islamic Republic was at the forefront of countries violating human rights, and in the statements and speeches of its officials, human rights were used with the suffix “American-Zionist”.

In the first step, international organizations requested the United Nations Human Rights Commission to prepare a comprehensive report on the human rights situation in Iran and present it to the commission. This report was prepared in late 1983. At the same time, the “Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities” expanded its focus from the issue of Baha’is to the broader issue of all human rights violations in Iran. Baha’is, especially their leaders, were subjected to attacks and persecution by the new government and extremist religious groups in society, with the aim of weakening and eradicating the Baha’i community.

In the autumn of 1983, this commission declared in its resolutions that the received reports indicate widespread violations of human rights and freedoms in Iran. Summary trials and executions without due process, torture, arbitrary arrests and detentions, persecution of religious minorities, and the lack of an independent judiciary and established legal standards for ensuring fair trials in revolutionary courts were among the issues raised in this report. In the same resolution, for the first time, the need for “the appointment of a special representative by the United Nations Economic and Social Council to investigate the human rights situation in Iran” was emphasized.

In 1984, the United Nations Human Rights Commission selected a special representative for Iran, with the mission of establishing communication with government officials and investigating and reporting on the human rights situation in Iran. Andreas Aguilar was the first special representative for this commission. His selection was a wise move by the Human Rights Commission, as he not only participated in the first World Conference on Human Rights in Tehran, but was also a member and one of the two co-chairs of the “United Nations Commission for the Investigation of Crimes by the Shah” in February 1980 and was familiar with Iran.

He had previously traveled to Iran in March 1980 with other members of the mentioned commission and returned to New York earlier than the rest of the members. This five-member commission, known as the “Truth-Finding” commission, was formed by the then Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kurt Waldheim, and was tasked with investigating human rights violations during the Shah’s regime and finding a solution to the crisis between the United States and Iran.

More than 1500 Iranians, who were said to have been disabled due to participating in street protests or SAVAK tortures, along with families of the victims, held a protest gathering in front of the Hilton Hotel, the location of this commission, which was considered a success for the Iranian government, during their visit to Tehran. Mohammad Behjoui, who was the head of this commission, promised to bring the unimaginable dimensions of human rights violations in Iran to the attention of the world by joining the protesters while they were agitated. But in the end, despite the promises made, due to the opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini and the “Imam’s followers”, the Truth Commission was unable to meet with the American hostages or access the documents of the crimes of the previous government, and its mission ended in failure.

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Eleven people accused of “anti-revolution” at Sanandaj airport after a brief trial in September 1979 / Photo of Jahangir Razmi.

In the early years, the official reactions of authorities to the efforts of the Special Representatives of the Human Rights Commission to bring the cooperation of Iranian government officials in denying human rights violations in Iran did not go beyond denial. However, gradually and with the increasing sensitivity of the Iranian government towards international opinions, this reaction had turned into mutual accusations and efforts to justify their lack of cooperation on one hand, and the use of new tactics by diplomats of the Islamic Republic to respond to questions from Aguilar and Reynaldo Galindo (the second Special Representative of the UN Human Rights Commission who was appointed after Aguilar’s resignation) on the other hand. The first condition for achieving this was to address the issue of terrorism and opponents of the Islamic Republic, especially groups that were involved in armed struggle, and the second condition was for the Special Representative of the United Nations to not label the Baha’i faith as a religion; these two conditions were clearly used as an excuse to avoid answering questions and criticisms from the UN

Until 1988, the United Nations General Assembly had accused the Iranian government four times in a row of gross violations of human rights and had taken action to issue resolutions. Alongside the annual reports of international human rights organizations, the United Nations Human Rights Commission had also warned about the dire human rights situation in Iran by issuing resolutions for eight consecutive years until 1988.

After the end of the Cold War, it seemed that the development of the foundations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights had become one of the central issues in the process of social and political transformations in developing countries, and many political movements have declared the development of human rights as one of their main goals. However, the issuance of sixty-one human rights resolutions against the government of Iran to date has shown that international human rights organizations believe that there is no strong will to improve the human rights situation in Iran among Iranian leaders.

The Islamic Republic’s authorities always accuse international human rights organizations and Western countries of having a double standard in dealing with human rights issues in Iran during the Pahlavi and Islamic Republic regimes. However, the reality is that with the increase of government interference in people’s personal affairs, cases of human rights violations have greatly increased. In the monarchy regime, religious minorities such as Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians had no restrictions. The Baha’is also had their own centers and associations, although the Shah occasionally put pressure on them. The courts to some extent respected due process. Women had more freedom in society and their clothing was not a controversial issue. They were also making progress in their careers and education. As the saying goes, “Despite the lack of political freedom, people enjoyed social freedom in all aspects of life.”

Sources.

1- Savak outside the country, Douran Magazine, Issue 61, December 2010.

2- Masoudi, Iraj, and Andreas Aguilar are the first special representatives to investigate the human rights situation in Iran, neither living nor dying.

3- Afshari, Reza, Violation of Baha’i Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iran Studies Foundation.

After the first official reaction to the protests of human rights organizations, in which Ayatollah Khomeini used this term in his speech on 3 Khordad 1358, the use of such a suffix for human rights became popular.