Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

to move:

That this House:

(1) expresses deep concern to our inter-parliamentary colleagues in the Iranian Parliament regarding serious and systematic human rights violations occurring in the Islamic Republic of Iran;

(2) notes the following from United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's report on The situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran released in September 2011, that:

(a) Iran has stepped up its crackdown on human rights workers, women's rights activists, journalists and government opponents;

(b) since the beginning of 2011, Iran has seen a notable increase in the use of capital punishment for political and juvenile prisoners;

(c) Iran has increased discrimination, in some cases amounting to persecution, against a number of religious and ethnic minority groups;

(d) the United Nations continues to hold long-standing concerns in respect of the treatment of the Baha'i community and the trial and sentencing of seven Baha'i community leaders, which did not meet due process and fair trial requirements;

(e) there is limited enjoyment of political, economic, social and cultural rights by, inter alia, Arabs, Azeri, Baloch and Kurdish communities, and some communities of non-citizens; and

(f) since May 2011, security forces conducted raids on the home of individuals involved in the activities of the Baha'i Institute for Higher Education and arrested 15 of its members in various cities;

(3) notes that in recent months there have been:

(a) further reports of the denial of access to Iranian universities for young people on the basis of their political or religious beliefs; and

(b) prison terms of between four and five years imposed on seven Iranian Baha'is in relation to their association with the Baha'i Institute for Higher Education; and

(4) calls on the National Consultative Assembly of Iran as fellow members of the inter parliamentary union and as the parliamentary body of a member state of the United Nations, to:

(a) promote and protect fundamental human rights irrespective of origin, ethnicity, sex, religion, opinion, or other status;

(b) investigate the denial of access to universities for student activists, Baha'is, and others barred from universities for reasons other than academic capability; and

(c) seeks a judicial review of the trials of prisoners of conscience, including the seven former Baha'i leaders, lawyer Ms Nasrin Sotoudeh, and other human rights defenders and lawyers.

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