NCRI – The US Department of State issued its annual report on Human Right in a document titled "Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record 2005 – 2006."
The report begins with the 2005 Inaugural Address of the US President George Bush when he said: “All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.”
The report says Iran sank further into tyranny and international isolation during last year. It continued to act as a state sponsor of terrorism, to stifle religious freedom, and to foster sectarian divisions and hatred abroad. The United States worked with regional allies to highlight concerns on Iran’s human rights performance.
Iran was designated as a Country of Particular Concern for continued severe violations of religious freedom.
The report stressed that in 2005, the Iranian regime committed a number of serious human rights abuses. Summary executions, discrimination based on ethnicity and religion, harassment and arrest of journalists and bloggers, disappearances, extremist vigilantism, widespread use of torture, and other degrading treatment remained as problems.
Protests by ethnic Arabs in Khuzestan in April 2005 and ethnic Kurds in northwestern Iran in the summer of 2005 were brutally suppressed leaving dozens killed or wounded, according to the report. The regime continued to detain and torture dissidents and individuals exercising freedom of expression, including scores of political prisoners.
Iranian bloggers continued to endure arrest and stiff penalties for expressing their ideas on the Internet.
The mullahs, according to the State Department report, continued to discriminate against and arrest members of the Baha’i religious community and the religious and ethnic minority groups, including Jews, Christians, and Sunni and Sufi Muslims faced continued social, political, and economic discriminations. Based on reports from Iran women are sentenced to death by stoning.
The report underscored that the U.S. human rights and democracy strategy is centered on urging friends and allies to condition improvement in bilateral and trade relations on positive changes in Iran’s human rights policies.