A/HRC/40/67 United Nations General Assembly Distr.: General 30 January 2019 Original: English Human Rights Council Fortieth session 25 February–22 March 2019 Agenda item 4 Human rights situations that require the Council’s attention Situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran* Summary The present report, submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 37/30, comprises two parts. In the first part, the Special Rapporteur describes how the protests in the Islamic Republic of Iran reflect long-standing grievances related to human rights. An amendment to the drug trafficking law has led to a decline in executions. Nevertheless, increasing economic challenges have intensified grievances, which may be exacerbated following the reimposition of unilateral sanctions. Discontent has been expressed through disparate protests by different groups across the country. The Government has introduced some measures aimed at addressing economic challenges, but the arrests of lawyers, human rights defenders and labour activists signal an increasingly severe State response. In the second part, the Special Rapporteur describes how the execution of child offenders in the Islamic Republic of Iran has continued over decades in violation of the country’s international human rights obligations. Girls can be sentenced to death as young as 9 and boys as young as 15. Despite amendments to the Penal Code and practical efforts aimed at reducing the executions, at least 33 child offenders have been executed since 2013. The Special Rapporteur makes a number of targeted recommendations to the Parliament and the judiciary with a view to ending such executions. * Agreement was reached to publish the present report after the standard publication date owing to circumstances beyond the submitter’s control. GE.19-01422(E) 