last week, approving the annual human rights resolution by a larger margin than usual. But in Iran, state broadcasting told the public the majority of the UN member states opposed the resolution. The resolution this year singled out Iran for the first time for its use of “suspension strangulation” in hanging people. The vote last week was in the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee, whose membership includes all UN members. The General Assembly itself will vote on the resolution next month, but since the same nations will be voting, only minor differences are expected as some countries absent last week appear for the vote next month and other countries miss that vote, The committee vote last week approved the critical resolution 80-44 with 57 countries abstaining and 11 absent. There were a few noteworthy shifts compared to last year. First, India, which has routinely voted against the resolutions criticizing Iran in the past, abstained this year. India cast its vote just days after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi listed Kashmir as one of the hotspotswhere Muslims are being oppressed. Second, Nigeria shifted from supporting Iran to abstaining. Its vote came a few weeks after the Nigerian government found 13 shipping containers sent from Iran to Nigeria were packed with weapons. Third, Gambia, which has normally abstained in the past, voted to condemn Iran this year. The vote was taken just days after Nigeria announced that the containers of weapons it had found were supposed to be forwarded to Gambia. Fourth, Saudi Arabia, which over the years has supported Iran along with almost all majority Muslim nations, last year stunningly voted against Iran and this year abstained. The Saudis have not explained their recent waffling. And, in the perpetual big laugh of the annual vote, tiny Tuvalu, the smallest country in the United Nations, made a conviction of waffling. This year, Tuvalu, all 10 square miles of it, voted yea. Last year, it voted nay. In 2008, it voted yea. In 2007, it voted nay. And in 2006, it voted yea. The 80 countries voting for the resolution this year were six more than voted yea last year. If that votes holds in the General Assembly, it will be the secondlargest vote against Iran since these resolutions were first brought up in 1982. The largest vote against Iran was 86-16 in 1992. The only other countries to have condemnatory resolutions approved this year were North Korea and Myanmar, putting the Islamic Republic in a very small and exclusive clique. In Tehran, state television presented the vote as a victory for Iran. The broadcast news combined the nay votes and the abstentions. The announcer began saying, “A total of 112 countries have opposed a resolution against Iran.… The refusal of a majority of the UN member states to vote for this resolution shows their dissatisfaction with the discriminatory policies of the Western countries.” The broadcast never said the resolution criticizing Iran was approved and left the impression it was defeated. The state broadcaster went on to say, “While Iran admits any human rights rapporteur, so far the countries proposing the anti- Iran resolution have not yet allowed any human rights rapporteur into their countries.” However, the resolution itself complains that Iran has not allowed any of the UN’s human rights rapporteurs to visit for five years and has left unanswered “the vast majority” of the letters from UN rapporteurs seeking to visit. It wasn’t immediately known if any of the 38 sponsors of the resolution had refused any such visits, but rapporteurs have frequently visited Canada, the main sponsor, and the United States, contrary to what the newscast said. This year’s resolution criticized the “high incidence” of execution in Iran. It singled out stoning and, for the first time, “suspension strangulation.” Most countries that hang use the “drop” technique, in which the rope breaks the neck and the person dies instantly. Even before the revolution, Iran used the “raise” technique. In which the person being hanged is hoisted by the rope and is slowly strangled to death. The resolution also criticizes the application of the death penalty “for crimes that lack a precise and explicit definition, including moharabeh—enmity against God—or for crimes that do not qualify as the most serious crimes, in violation of international law.” The resolution included the usual criticisms contained in resolutions over the years, complaining of torture, flogging, gender inequality, holding people without charge for long periods and discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities. Mohammad-Javad Larijani, the Judiciary’s human rights coordinator, was in New York arguing for Iran. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, he defended stoning as a deterrent but said it had not been used in years. Actually, the Judiciary confirmed an execution by stoning in Rasht eight months ago just before Now Ruz. Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi has also been in New York the last few weeks lobbying countries to vote for the resolutuon and against the Islamic Republic
