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Iran's Nuclear Deal Raises Serious Questions

(Montreal Gazette-Canada) Irwin Cotler - In 2010, as part of the UN Human Rights Council's first Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Iran, the Iranian government committed to implementing 126 of the 212 recommendations made to it by the international community. In the five years since making those commitments - on matters ranging from women's rights, to freedom of religion and expression, to the humane treatment of detainees - the human rights situation in Iran has worsened in many respects. The persecution, imprisonment and torture of human rights defenders, members of minority groups, journalists and many other leaders of Iranian civil society has intensified, while the execution rate in Iran - already the highest in the world - has almost doubled under the supposedly moderate President Hassan Rouhani. Given the Iranian regime's appalling track record of bad faith and duplicity when it comes to international commitments - as well as its standing violation of international treaties to which it is a party and its wanton violation of the human rights of its own citizens - there are serious questions to be asked about the nuclear agreement. The writer, a Member of Parliament in Canada, co-chairs the Inter-Parliamentary Group for Human Rights in Iran. He is a former justice minister and attorney general, and emeritus professor of law at McGill University.
2015-08-21 00:00:00
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