H.E. Mr. Hossein Panahiazar:

I can go through details of their cases. They were not convicted on account of their faith or belief. The centre of Baha'i groups is located in Israel. They established a university, without the permission of the higher education Ministry, that is connected directly with their base in Israel and have been informed that this is illegal. We have thousands of Baha'is in Iran. If their faith was the problem, all of them would be in prison. The Baha'i leaders about whom Irish people have heard have all been charged with offences that I can explain to the committee. They were convicted according to the rules and regulations all countries are following. In Ireland, for example, I do not think someone can establish a university without following the rules and regulations of the Minister for Education and Skills. This is what the Baha'is have done.

If members want, we can go into detail on these case by case.

In general, what I am saying is that we are doing our best to improve the human rights situation in our country and we are co-operating with the Human Rights Council. We are aware there are shortcomings and have accepted some of the recommendations made during the universal periodic review, UPR, and are implementing them. We are changing some parts of our criminal code and we hope this helps to improve the situation.

I should mention that Iran is located in a very dangerous area and the main concern at the present time for our Government is the security of our people. Every morning when one looks at the newspaper, one reads about explosions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey and other areas near us, but one does not read so much about Tehran or other cities. Our main focus is to look after the security of the people of our country. This contributes to the problems, because when security is the main priority, this highlights areas that could be better and more open. We hope that as the situation in our region gets better, our situation will improve as a result. We have neighbours, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and even in Turkey, who struggle every day for their lives when they leave their houses. Many explosions take place in those regions or near the borders. Terrorist activities are ongoing in those regions. We hope this will be resolved and hope to see an improved situation in those areas.

I mentioned our concerns regarding the threats of a strike against Iran. We are completely ready for that. We take the threats of a strike by Israel very seriously in so far as we should be prepared for it. However, we do not think there is a real aerial threat, because as members know, Israel has already attacked Iraqi and Syrian nuclear plants previously. Therefore, if Israel wanted to attack Iran, it would have done it many years ago, not now. Israel knows what the consequences and reaction would have been then. Although we take the threat seriously and are prepared for a strike, we do not have a real concern a strike will take place.