CNN) — While the world’s attention has been focused on tumult in the Arab world, Iran has cracked down with impunity on dissent and is feared to come down even harder as elections approach, Amnesty International said in a sweeping report.
The global human rights monitor documented “widespread and persistent human rights violations in Iran.”
“It is essential if further mass human rights violations are to be avoided that the international community act on behalf of the hundreds, if not thousands, of prisoners of conscience and political prisoners imprisoned after unfair trials in Iran,” Amnesty International said in the report.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini celebrated the popular revolts in Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain, saying that they reflected an “Islamic awakening” based on Iran’s 1979 revolution.
