Amnesty International has launched a Persian-language website, saying it aims to increase access to information on abuse in Iran amid “an all-out assault on human rights” by the authorities, including arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture, and extrajudicial executions.
The new website, launched on Human Rights Day on December 10, includes, among other things, research and legal analysis of “shocking” human rights violations, as well as recommendations to the international community to tackle “this crisis of impunity,” the London-based human rights watchdog said in a statement.
The launch came as the BBC urged the international community to take “robust” action to force the Iranian authorities to put an end to their “escalating campaign” of harassment and intimidation against its journalists and their families at home and abroad.
Diana Eltahawy, deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, said that Iran “suffers from a deepening human rights crisis, with hundreds of individuals on death row following unfair trials — including those arrested as children — and thousands persecuted or arbitrarily detained for peacefully exercising their human rights.
“The families of thousands of people killed or forcibly disappeared by the authorities are left waiting for truth and justice,” she also said, while rights defenders and dissidents who “speak out against repression and injustice endure grave human rights violations.”
Meanwhile, the BBC said in a statement that staff from its Persian-language service have endured more than a decade of harassment and attacks, including asset freezes and arbitrary arrest of relatives.
“In the past year, threats against BBC News Persian staff and Persian-speaking journalists outside Iran have escalated. Death threats and threats of extra-territorial harm have been made towards BBC News Persian staff in London, leading to police involvement and protection,” the British broadcaster said.
BBC World Service lawyers Caoilfhionn Gallagher and Jennifer Robinson called on the international community “to take immediate, robust action to ensure Iran is held accountable, and BBC News Persian journalists can report without fear.”
The broadcaster said its Persian-language service had a weekly global audience of nearly 22 million people, including some 13 million in Iran.
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