REZA AFSHARI, Human Rights in Iran: The Abuse of Cultural Relativism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001). Pp. 382. $49.95 cloth.

Extract

Using a vast array of government documents, newspapers, journals, memoirs of political prisoners, and reports issued by the Special Representative appointed by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR), Reza Afshari provides a rich, sensitive, and very sympathetic presentation of the experiences and voices of victims of human-rights violations in Iran. This timely book is organized into eighteen chapters and is, to a large extent, the story of two decades of interaction between the UNCHR and Iranian officials. It discusses reports issued by the Special Representative of the UNCHR on the conditions of human rights in Iran and documents their violations in 1979–2000. In addition to gender discriminations and threats to the liberty and life of secular intellectuals, each of the following rights is discussed in a separate chapter: the right to life; freedom from torture and cruel punishment; liberty and security of person and freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention; a fair trial; freedom of conscience, thought, and religion; freedom of opinion, expression, and the press; participation in the state's political affairs; and the rights of women to equal opportunities in public life.