The Iranian government has taken Canada to task over the “dire” living conditions of its indigenous community.
According to Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on Monday Canada’s charge d’affairs in Tehran was summoned to the ministry where Iran’s “deep concern” over the “deterioration” of indigenous rights in the North American country was conveyed to Canadian officials.
“The situation of the indigenous people in Canada is deplorable and is a concern for the international community. The Islamic Republic of Iran strongly protests the severe violation of the rights of these individuals by the Canadian government,” an Iranian official was quoted as saying.
The diplomat also urged the Canadian government to allow James Anaya, the United Nation’s special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, to visit the country and to facilitate the monitoring of its human rights record by international organisations.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran also calls on the Canadian Government to respect its international obligations and responsibilities and to cooperate with its indigenous community to find a solution to their problems,” the Iranian foreign ministry official was cited as saying.
In May 2010, Ahmadinejad’s former Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that his government was seriously pursuing the violations of rights of the indigenous, women and different tribes in countries such as Canada. The remarks came just days after Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon had said that he was “extremely troubled” about Iran’s human rights record and had “serious concerns” about Iran’s participation in UN’s Commission on the Status of Women.
In September 2011, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the human rights situtation in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, submitted a damning report regarding the Iranian authorities’ wide-ranging human right abuses, including the continued house arrest of opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi. The 21-page report emphasised “the need for greater transparency and cooperation from” Iranian authorities and requested that the special investigator be granted access to both detention centres and those detained in Iran to assess the allegations of human rights violations against the country’s rulers.
The investigation found that among of the most “urgent” issues concerning the abuse of human rights in Iran were “multifarious deficits in relation to the administration of justice, certain practices that amount to torture, cruel, or degrading treatment of detainees, the imposition of the death penalty in the absence of proper judicial safeguards, the status of women, the persecution of religious and ethnic minorities, and the erosion of civil and political rights.”
The Iranian government has thus far declined to grant Shaheed permission to enter the country.
On 19 December, the 193-member UN General Assembly, approved a Canada-drafted resolution denouncing serious human rights violations perpetrated by the Iranian regime.
Source : The Green Voice of Freedom