November 30, 2008

LONDON – The Foreign Policy Centre, a leading foreign affairs think tank in Britain, has published a new report on Iran titled "A Revolution Without Rights: Women, Kurds and Baha'is Searching for Equality in Iran."

The report concludes that, although the world is focusing on Iran's nuclear issue, the rights of women and minorities must not be overlooked.

Published as a pamphlet, the report was presented at a public program at the Houses of Parliament on 25 November, coinciding with United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

The document evaluates the Iranian government's compliance with its own constitution and looks at how the country's treatment of women and minorities measures up to the international agreements it has signed.

UK Foreign Office Minister Lord Mark Malloch-Brown wrote the preface, describing the report as an "important contribution to the debate, and an important part of ensuring that improving Iran's human rights record stays firmly on the agenda worldwide."

"Iran consistently fails to meet the international commitments that it is signed up to," he wrote. "It ignores its own laws and terms of its own constitution such as arbitrary arrest and the denial of due process. And it is increasingly – and worryingly – using vague, national security-related charges such as ‘acting against state security' and ‘propaganda against the system' against individuals who are exercising their right to peaceful protest."

Baha'i World News Service