Ahmadinejad’s refusal to respect international environmental standards and consider human cost in his attempts to industrialize Iran has resulted in the further marginalization of minority communities.  Andrew Swan, UNPO Programme Manager, and University of Paris Professor Didier Idjadi, discussed the rapid deterioration of Lake Orumiyeh over the past fifteen years.   According to Swan, “Lake [Orumiyeh] has showcased the failure – wilful or otherwise – to manage an ecosystem, allow any form of legitimate protest, or to hold account those responsible for such gross mismanagement.”

Under President Ahmadinejad’s regime, which has been marked by a blatant disregard for fundamental and universal human rights, minority communities and marginalized groups face escalating threats of arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, torture and intimidation.  According to Nahid Hemmati, a women’s rights advocate and member of the Coordinating Council of the Republican, Democratic and Secular Movement, “the fabric of society is being ripped apart, giving a pretext to the regime to step up persecution of democratic movements.”

Representing the Baha’i community in Iran, Sarah Vader reinforced Hemmati’s argument, revealing that in cases where detained individuals are given a trial, Iran’s flawed and fractured court system has created an untenable legal climate within the authoritarian state wherein innocent activists, journalists and women are indicted on false charges and given unwarranted sentences. Vader also underscored the level of discrimination practiced in institutions of higher education, indicating that if a student is found to be of Bahai’i origin, he or she faces certain expulsion from any institution.

Idjadi placed responsibility for the lake’s 60% evaporation squarely on the infrastructure that now overwhelms the rivers sourcing the body of water.  With five dams and a bridge bisecting its waters, the lake could disappear in two years.  Despite local protests and the imminent displacement of millions of resident’s, Tehran has no official policy regarding the Lake’s deterioration. 

In addition to these speakers, Sadegh Saba, head of BBC’s Persian service, shared details of journalists disappearances and Iran’s obstruction of” impartial, free and accurate” programming to Iranians while Anne Marie Van Den Berken, a representative of the International Organization to Preserve Human Rights in Iran, highlighted Iran’s intent to export its ideology.  

Additional testimony to the indignities faced by Iran’s marginalized communities was given by the International Trade Union Confederation’s Magnus Palmgren, who discussed Iran’s policy against trade union formation and delegation member Bastiaan Belder MEP, who urged the EEAS to condemn a potential change in Iran’s criminal statute that would legalize the death penalty and life imprisonment for those Iranians who choose to renounce their Muslim faith.

Iran’s disenfranchised populations have long called for the restoration of peace, representation and culture in Iran in response to Ahmadinejad’s extreme policies.  These requests have been met with increased crackdowns, further rights limitations, and unnecessary violence.  It is in this context that delegation substitute Marietje Schaake MEP called upon Europe and the European Parliament to take “concrete actions [to make the] the European Parliament’s push for transparency… credible.”

The Delegation for Relations with Iran will next meet on 19 December 2011 and the meeting’s agenda will focus on the threat posed by Iran’s energy build-up and nuclear stockpile.

To read background documents to the hearing, please click here.