UN fact-finding committee and special rapporteur: Iran should drop the “foreign influence plan”

🔸A group of experts from the United Nations on Thursday, the 12th of Shahrivar, urged the Islamic Republic of Iran to immediately abandon a plan that criminalizes any contact by Iranian citizens with individuals or institutions abroad.

🔸The UN’s independent international fact-finding committee on Iran, with a special rapporteur, warned—emphasizing that it was “alarmed” by what it saw in the provisions of a plan recently raised in Iran’s parliament—that its possible adoption and implementation would amount to “a dangerously intensifying crackdown on fundamental freedoms and isolating Iranians from the international community.”

🔸The text of the plan has not yet been finalized, but its draft states that “any activity or engagement with real or legal persons, whether Iranian or non-Iranian, that harms the independence, national unity, Islamic teachings, or the national sovereignty of the country” will be prohibited.

🔸The plan’s proponents have claimed that the purpose of presenting it is to safeguard Iran’s “independence, integrity, national unity, and cultural characteristics.”

🔸In its statement, the UN experts warned that the adoption of this plan would mean that “any interaction with foreign countries, international media, educational institutions, human rights defenders, and civil society groups active in society could lead to legal prosecution under the heading of major security offenses.”

🔸According to members of the fact-finding committee, journalists, academics, activists, and others could face punishments of up to 30 years in prison, also only for contact with foreign institutions.

🔸The three-member fact-finding committee, which issues its positions independent of the United Nations, in its statement emphasized that “the ambiguous and general text of the plan” would require Iranians to declare and record any interaction with foreign citizens or countries.

🔸Sara Hossein, the head of the committee, wrote in the released statement that “we are deeply alarmed by the Iranian government’s efforts to generally criminalize any interaction by Iranians with the outside world.”

🔸Read the full report on the Radio Farda website.