IRAN:Excerpts of Amnesty International's 2015/2016 report on violation of human rights in Iran:

Womenremained subject to discrimination under the law, particularly criminal and family law, and in practice.

Women and girls also faced new challenges to their sexual and reproductive health and rights. Parliament debated several draft laws that would further erode women’s rights, including the Bill to Increase Fertility Rates.

Iran: Honor killing – Father kills her newly-wed daughter with shovel

Iran: Honor killing – Father kills her newly-wed daughter with shovel

A man beat up her 15-year-old newly-wed daughter with the handle of the shovel in a bid to punish and dissuade the girl from divorcing her husband, but ended up killing her.

The murderer father confessed: "I was mad at my daughter. So, I picked the handle of the shovel and beat her up so much that she was wounded. I wanted to force her to stay with her husband. At midnight, she felt really bad and before we could do anything, she died." (State-run TNews.ir website, January 19, 2016)

The statics show that forcible marriage of under-age girls in Iran is on the rise as sanctioned by the law.

URGENT ACTION: JUVENILE OFFENDER FACES THE GALLOWS AGAIN

Salar Shadizadi

Juvenile offender Salar Shadizadi has been rescheduled for execution on Saturday 28 November.

Juvenile offender Salar Shadizadi has been rescheduled for execution on Saturday 28 November, despite the prohibition on the use of the death penalty against juvenile offenders under international law and standards, and his right to be granted a re-trial under Iran’s own domestic law.

Salar Shadizadi, now aged 24, was sentenced to death by Branch 11 of the Provincial Criminal Court of Gilan Province in December 2007 for stabbing his childhood friend. He was 15 years old at the time. The sentence was upheld by Branch 37 of the Supreme Court in March 20 08 and approved by the Head of the Judiciary in May 2013. Since then, the authorities have twice scheduled the execution and later postponed it. They have, however, failed to take the steps necessary to ensure that Salar Shadizadi is granted a re-trial, even though the General Board of Iran’s Supreme Court has ruled that all those on death row for crimes committed when they were under 18 are entitled to receive a re-trial based on the new juvenile sentencing provisions of Iran’s 2013 Islamic Penal Code.

Salar Shadizadi was arrested in February 2007 and charged with the murder of a friend when he was 15 years old. He was not granted access to a lawyer at the investigative stage and was only allowed to retain a lawyer when his case was sent to court for trial. He says that he was also tortured and otherwise ill-treated during the investigative stage. In a will letter written from prison in November 2015

Iran: UN Third Committee expresses strong concern over human, women's rights in Iran

the UN Third Committee

Created: 20 November 2015

In a strongly worded resolution on Thursday night, November 19, 2015, the UN Third Committee condemned the flagrant violations of human rights in Iran.

It took a strong stand against the death penalty, massive and violent crackdown on religious and ethnic minorities and of course on women, and decided to continue its examination of the situation of human rights in Iran under the item entitled “Promotion and protection of human rights”.

On the part on women's rights, the resolution indicates that the General Assembly "strongly urges" the clerical regime in Iran "to eliminate, in law and in practice, all forms of discrimination and other human rights violations against women and girls, to take measures to ensure protection for women and girls against violence, to address the alarming incidence of child, early and forced marriage, to promote women’s participation in decision-making processes and, while recognizing the high enrolment of women in all levels of education in the Islamic Republic of Iran, to lift restrictions on women’s equal access to all aspects of education and women’s equal participation in the labour market and in all aspects of economic, cultural, social and political life."

This resolution is going to be voted on by the General Assembly.