Bob Carr (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Only this morning I met with a number of Australian religious organisations, including the Australian Baha'i community. Twenty members of the Baha'i community remain in prison, as do members of other religious minorities. Reports of human rights violations continue to flow from Iran. Authorities continue to target civil society, media and human rights defenders. According to Human Rights Watch, Iran carried out more than 600 executions in 2011. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's 2012 report on Iran raised concerns about torture, amputations, floggings, the increasingly frequent application of the death penalty, arbitrary detention and unfair trials. Australia co-sponsors annual resolutions on Iran in the UN Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly. During the election campaign, Dr Rohani spoke about the need to respect freedom of speech and other freedoms and we will continue to press the Iranian government to respect those freedoms. (Time expired)