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Iran presidential vote not free, fair: UN rights envoy
 [Straits Times] Iran's presidential election has been neither free nor fair as Tehran has silenced journalists and opposition leaders in the run up to Friday's vote, a United Nations...boodling on the grand scale... (UN) human rights ...which often include carefully measured allowances of freedomat the convenience of the state... investigator said in Spain. Mr Ahmed Shaheed, UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran, warned in March that he was concerned that the outcome of the election would lack legitimacy because dozens of Iranian journalists were behind bars and hundreds of political prisoners remained in jug. "I absolutely think the fears were warranted as has been bourne out by events," he told Agence La Belle France-Presse on the sidelines of the World Congress against the Death Penalty. "The mass disqualification of candidates, especially for reasons that were not transparent and that appear to be quite unreasonable, for one violates the right to political participation. Posted by: Fred 2013-06-14 |
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