NEW YORK (Reuters) – Human rights groups urged the UN General Assembly to appoint a special envoy to investigate abuses in Iran, alleging detainees held after disputed elections there have been raped and tortured.
Iran has called the allegations baseless.
Human Rights Watch and the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran yesterday said about 400 prisoners remained in custody for their suspected involvement in election protests following the June 12 vote in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected.
The opposition says the poll was rigged.
As many as 72 Iranians have been killed by government forces since the election, and several have been tortured and sexually abused, the groups alleged in a news conference near United Nations headquarters.
“Member states of the United Nations should use (Ahmadinejad’s) upcoming visit to the UN General Assembly to address Iran’s Human rights crisis,” the groups said in a statement. Ahmadinejad was due to address the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, with several groups preparing to protest his presence at UN headquarters in New York.
Ebrahim Sharifi, a 24 year-old computer science student from Tehran, said he was among the prisoners questioned, beaten and raped by Iranian interrogators during a harrowing week of detention in late June.
