Remarks by former UN Special Adviser Karen Smith at Civil Society Hearing into Iran's 1988 Massacre
Channel: Justice for Victims of 1988 Massacre in Iran
Date: 2024-02-21

15 February 2024 - Prof. Karen Smith, UN Assistant Secretary-General and Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Responsibility to Protect (2019-2021), addressed a civil society hearing on the 1988 massacre of political prisoners in Iran.

At a civil society hearing at the Geneva Press Club, organised by Justice for the Victims of the 1988 Massacre in Iran (JVMI), survivors of the 1988 massacre and victims’ families gave evidence to the UN Special Procedures at a public event regarding the extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances of their friends and loved ones for the first time after 35 years.

Witnesses who gave evidence included nine survivors of the 1988 massacre, three relatives of victims of the 1988 massacre, one activist in Iran who was recently arrested for taking part in anti-government protests, and the father of a protester who was killed by the authorities – the latter two sending their video testimonies from inside Iran.

International experts who addressed the hearing included Javaid Rehman, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran; Aua Baldé, Chair-Rapporteur of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID); Karen Smith, UN Assistant Secretary-General and Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Responsibility to Protect (2019-2021); Raha Bahreini, Amnesty International’s Iran Researcher; Geoffrey Robertson KC, former President of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL); Baroness Helena Kennedy KC, Director of the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI); Kevin Jon Heller, Special Adviser on War Crimes to the Prosecutor of the international Criminal Court; Wolfgang Schomburg, Judge of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) (2001-2008), former Judge of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), and Judge of the Federal Supreme Court of Germany (1995–2000); Kirsty Brimelow KC, barrister and former Chair of the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales; Sheila Paylan, former Human Rights Officer and SGBV Specialist at the UN human rights office; and Tahar Boumedra, JVMI Director and former Chief of the UN Human Rights Office in Iraq.

Ambassadors and experts from over a dozen Permanent Missions, observers from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and various UN Working Groups, and human rights advocates and NGOs attended the hearing.