The special United Nations investigator of human rights in Iran presented a highly critical report on Tuesday that contradicted the regime’s own assessment, describing a record rate of executions, a flawed judiciary and repression of journalists, dissidents and women.
The conditions described by the investigator, Ahmed Shaheed, a former Maldives foreign minister, contradicts image of eased constraints that the President of Iran, Hassan Rouhani of Iran has sought to project since his election in 2013.
In some ways, Mr. Shaheed said, Iranians are worse off than during the era of the former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Amendments to a criminal procedure law, for example, impose new restrictions on access to legal counsel. Some defendants must now choose lawyers from a pool selected by the head of the judiciary.
