UN Special Rapporteur’s Visit to Iran Justifies the Clerical Regime’s Criminal and Plundering Policies
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Written by
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
As Iranian cities rise up against criminal and plundering mullahs and protest against high prices, poverty, and inflation, the ruling religious fascism is using the 12-day visit and shameful remarks by Alena Douhan, a Belarussian State University professor and UN’s special rapporteur on sanctions, to cover up the systematic state corruption, and the astronomical thefts and embezzlements by the regime’s leaders and their relatives, and the waste of the country’s wealth on unpatriotic nuclear and missile projects, and warmongering policies. The visit and the disgraceful remarks also pave the way for the regime to circumvent the sanctions.
Ms. Douhan, known for her links to human rights violators, was greeted by the clerical regime at a time when the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights situation in Iran has not been allowed to visit Iran in 26 years. In her despicable remarks, whitewashing the mullahs’ theft and plunder, she blamed the sanctions for the Iranian people’s economic woes and urged their lifting. According to the Quds Force affiliated news agency, Tasnim, on May 18, 2022, she claimed, “Iran’s actions had reduced the direct negative effects of sanctions on human rights.” Her remarks recall the betrayal of human rights following the massacre of political prisoners in 1988 when the regime took advantage of the visit to Iran by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights.
It is not surprising that the most notorious regime media outlets have welcomed Ms. Douhan’s visit and remarks, including Fars, the IRGC affiliated news agency, Tasnim, Mizan, the criminal judiciary’s news agency, Mehr news agency, affiliated to the Intelligence Ministry, and state Radio and Television, as well as Kayhan daily, Khamenei’s mouthpiece. Douhan met with the regime’s authorities on the same days when the repressive forces were slaughtering anti-regime protesters and wounding or arresting many more.
Ms. Douhan expressed sympathy with the patients and showed concerns about the high cost and shortage of medicine, while the monopoly on the production and import of medicine is in the hands of the plundering foundation called “Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order,” whose entire assets, totaling $100 billion has been stolen from the Iranian people. It is not clear why Douhan failed to express sympathy for the 550,000 Coronavirus victims, most of whom died because Khamenei banned the import of vaccines.
The Iranian people are suffering from hunger and lack of medicine, while the IRGC’s budget increased by 240% only in the last fiscal year (1401 in Persian Calendar). In addition, Khamenei has allocated more than 5.5 billion euros from the National Sovereign Fund to security forces, most of which goes to the IRGC. In the same year, the regime increased the state-run Radio and Television budget, which is part of the propaganda and repression machine, by 56 percent. Starving and depriving people of medical services is a deliberate policy and a great crime by the regime, which falls within the scope of this Rapporteur’s duties, about which she remained silent.
The experience of the lifting of sanctions between 2015 to 2018 showed that it did not change the people’s livelihood and only fueled the regime’s terror and crime machine inside and outside the country. For this reason, in the uprisings, Iranians have been chanting, “Our enemy is right here. They lie it’s America.”
The Iranian Resistance urges the United Nations to prevent the medieval dictatorship ruling Iran to exploit UN agencies, rapporteurs, and mechanisms to justify its crimes against the Iranian people. The United Nations must hold Khamenei and Raisi accountable for the massacre of the protesters during the 2019 uprising and for the deliberate downing of the Ukrainian airliner in January 2020.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
May 21, 2022