Lawyer and university professor José Luís da, one of the first signatories to an open letter a month ago to the US President, the President of the European Council and the British and Canadian Prime Ministers urging them to take action to stem the wave of stop executions in Iran Cruz Vilaça deplores the minor repercussions it had, especially in Portugal. “The subject is not well covered by the media in Portugal.” And more generally, he believes that “more mobilization is needed to prevent further decline of civilization, as we are also seeing in Afghanistan, by the way.”
In Brussels, the European Parliament partially responded to requests in the open letter by demanding that the Revolutionary Guard face sanctions, but that decision is unlikely to be made at Monday’s meeting, where more individuals and organizations will be targeted for sanctions.
In response to the wave of repression from the Iranian regime exactly one month ago, 238 international personalities, including 16 Nobel laureates, sent a letter to US President Joe Biden, to President of the European Council Charles Michel, to British Prime Minister Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, with knowledge of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk.
In the letter, the signatories say it is “absolutely imperative that the world’s major democratic nations act urgently to stop the Iranian authorities’ efforts to suppress the ongoing protests through the use of the death penalty, in violation of international law.” , while applauding the “brave young Iranians” who continue to protest “to end decades of tyranny”.
“The result [dos protestos] It is plain to see: hundreds of executions preceded by mock trials of protesters whose only crime is to express an opinion that deviates from that of the ruling class.” Cruz Vilaça
In particular, the authors of the initiative “want to hold the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran accountable for committing crimes against humanity, for acts that include the murder of children and the public hanging of demonstrators, and for using all internationally available means to to use.” to justice”, including the establishment of a “joint mechanism to identify those responsible and perpetrators of the ongoing crackdown on demonstrators and swiftly enforce joint sanctions”.
The death of young Kurd Mahsa Amini while in police custody for not wearing an Islamic headscarf last September triggered a social and political earthquake that has shaken the foundations of the theocratic and authoritarian regime.
In the letter – whose first signatories are the German Joachim Rücker, former president of the UN Human Rights Council; South Korean Sang-Hyun Song, former president of the International Criminal Court; Belarusian Oleksandra Matviichuk, Nobel Peace Prize; Cruz Vilaça, former Judge of the Court of Justice of the EU; and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark – the authorities’ response would amount to at least 700 dead, including dozens of minors, and 30,000 detained, “with dozens of people sentenced to death for moharebeh (war against God) in fraudulent and summary judgments without due process”.
Other organizations present lower estimates (for example, Iran Human Rights points to 481 deaths, though it states the number will be higher, and warns that 109 prisoners are at risk of execution).
The personalities also call for the level of diplomatic relations of the countries with Tehran to be lowered through the withdrawal of ambassadors and the expulsion of representatives “of what is effectively a murderous government”, as well as the imposition of economic sanctions. aimed at “Stop funding the state’s repression mechanism and, in particular, blacklist the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its affiliated entities leading the repression.”
Against the Revolutionary Guard, EU foreign ministers will impose new sanctions on 37 Iranian officials and organizations for its repression of the protests, but they are still debating whether to include the powerful organization on the list of terrorist groups. To this end, the European Parliament passed a resolution in Strasbourg, prompting the Iranian regime to warn the EU to “be careful of the consequences” of such a measure.
Source: DN
