Every year since 1985 the United Nations General Assembly has passed a non-binding resolution expressing its deep concern over Iran's serious continuing and recurring human rights violations. The country’s human rights abuses reached alarming new levels in 2009 following the June 12th presidential election that returned Mahmoud Ahmedinejad to power. Protests over the election, which many considered rigged, attracted international attention when millions of Iranians took to the streets of Tehran. The Iranian regime responded with a wave of arrests and brutal force. Demonstrators, human rights activists, journalists, and political opponents were arbitrarily imprisoned, injured and even killed.

Since the election there have been many other victims of human right violations in Iran. Thousands of opposition activists and dissenters have been beaten and shot during peaceful assemblies; some have been tortured, raped, and abused in detention. Hundreds of citizens and political figures who seek reform have been tried in mass show trials, broadcast on television. They have been denied due process and sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

Despite harsh repression, the Green Movement for human rights and democracy appears to be growing stronger, with women leading the struggle for political change and equality in Iran. Today, even under circumstances of repression, women make up over 60 percent of university students. They are well-represented among the ranks of doctors, professors and business leaders. Many women participate in the Million Signatures Campaign, an effort in Iran and around the world to reform and repeal Iranian laws that discriminate against women.

The Iranian regime keeps some of its worst abuses hidden from public view. At least five political prisoners were executed -- in secret -- in 2010. Some 2,500 other political prisoners are unaccounted for and are believed to be held by the Iranian regime. It is commonplace for human rights defenders to be harassed and threatened with arrest. The decentralized Green Movement has not faltered and continues its work. As Laureate Shirin Ebadi has stated, the women’s movement resides in every Iranian household that cares about human rights. The movement has emerged as an unstoppable force for democracy and human rights in Iran.

Asks

• The government of Iran must halt its grave violations of human rights and take action to ensure the immediate release of all political prisoners.

• The international community must continue to press the Iranian regime to end its harassment of human rights defenders and permit them to continue their work free of intimidation, threats, and fear of arrest.

• The government of Iran must allow access for the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran to investigate and report on human rights violations.

• The United States and Iran should engage in constructive dialogue to normalize relations and avoid military conflict. The legislative bodies of government, civil society, academia, and women of both states must be included in processes to prevent escalation of tensions.