The European Parliament on Thursday condemned what it said were Iran's rights abuses against women, including “brutal murders.”
In the joint resolution adopted by 516 votes in favor, four against and 27 abstentions, MEPs slammed the “deterioration of the human rights situation in Iran, and the brutal murders of women by the Iranian authorities, including the 2023 Sakharov Prize laureate Mahsa Amini.”
Amini, a 22-year-old woman, died in police custody in September last year after being detained on allegations of improperly wearing the hijab.
Amini's death sparked widespread street demonstrations against the Iranian religious and political leaders that security forces put down brutally. Hundreds of people have been killed or executed in the repression, and thousands have been arrested.
In October, the European Parliament awarded the EU's top rights award, the Sakharov Prize, to Amini and to the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement that sprang up after Amini’s death.
In their non-binding resolution, MEPs called for the immediate release from detention of human rights defenders, including Narges Mohammadi who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last month for keeping up her fight against the “oppression of women” in her country despite numerous arrests and spending years behind bars.
They also condemned the continued judicial harassment of Sakharov Prize winner Nasrin Sotoudeh and called for all charges to be dropped.
Prominent human rights lawyer and women’s right activist Sotoudeh, 60, was arrested on October 29 in Tehran while attending the funeral of 17-year-old Armita Garavand, who passed away after nearly a month in coma.
On Oct. 1, Garavand was reportedly harassed in a Tehran metro by the so called “morality police” in Iran.
The European Parliament urged the Iranian authorities to “immediately end all discrimination against women and girls, including mandatory veiling,” and to “repeal all discriminatory gender laws.”
They also condemned Iran’s “hostage diplomacy” under which many foreigners have been incarcerated in Iran for what activists and Western governments say is a tactic to extract concessions from the West, or the release of Iranians imprisoned abroad.
