Impact Iran

The Special Rapporteur calls on the Government to ensure the protection of the rights of LGBT and intersex individuals by repealing laws that punish people based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, and enacting effective anti-discrimination laws, and to ban forced and involuntary treatment and medical procedures.

The Special Rapporteur encourages the Government to consider ending its satellite jamming, given its impact on the health of its citizens and on the right to access to information. He also calls for the enhancement of policies that govern gender confirmation surgeries for transgender individuals to ensure the protection of the right to health of those who may consider such procedures.

Examine and address those laws that contravene its international obligation to eliminate all forms of discrimination in law and practice. These include those laws and policies that undermine gender equality and women's rights, and that discriminate against religious and ethnic minorities, and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in the country.

Prohibit, prevent and punish the harassment, bullying, and expulsion from schools of LGBTI children.

The Committee recommends that the State party take effective measures, including accountability, to put an end to discrimination against religious, ethnic and linguistic minorities, children born out of wedlock and asylum-seeking and refugee children, and that it ensure that those responsible for any forms of discrimination against such groups are held accountable. Furthermore, the Committee recommends that the State party decriminalize same-sex relations and take measures to eliminate discrimination against LGBTI children.

The Committee recommends that the State party repeal or amend all legislation that results or could result in discrimination, prosecution and punishment of people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The Committee recommends that the State party take steps to combat and prevent discrimination and societal stigma against members of the LGBT, and ensure their enjoyment of all the rights enshrined in the Covenant, including unhindered access to employment, social services, health care and education, in line with article 2, paragraph 2, of the Covenant and the Committee's general comment No. 20 (2009) on non-discrimination in economic, social and cultural rights.

The State party should repeal or amend all legislation which provides for or could result in discrimination against, and prosecution and punishment of, people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. It should ensure that anyone held solely on account of freely and mutually agreed sexual activities or sexual orientation should be released immediately and unconditionally. The State party should also take all necessary legislative, administrative and other measures to eliminate and prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, including with respect to access to employment, housing, education and health care, and to ensure that individuals of different sexual orientation or gender identity are protected from violence and social exclusion within the community. The Committee reaffirms that all of these matters fall entirely within the purview of the rights contained in the Covenant, and therefore within the Committee's mandate. It urges the State party to include detailed information on the enjoyment of Covenant rights by members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in its next periodic report.