Seoul: Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner
Shirin Ebadi on Tuesday called for a fresh election under UN
surveillance to end violence in her country and urged UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to visit Tehran.
Ebadi, a lawyer and human rights defender who won the
prize in 2003, said Ban must gather first-hand information on
human rights conditions before drawing up a United Nations
report on Iran due in December.
"In order to have fair election results, there must be
a re-election under UN surveillance," she told journalists
during her visit to South Korea.
"I plead with the UN Secretary General to come to
Iran. He must see what`s happening in Iran with his own eyes
and talk to Iranians in order to write an accurate and
truthful report," she said through an interpreter.
Ebadi denounced Tehran for using violence against
citizens who protested at President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad`s
disputed re-election in a June 12 poll that sparked weeks of
unrest.
She urged Tehran to stop using violence against
peaceful protesters, halt the "show trials" of political
opponents, release detainees, end censorship and compensate
victims of government violence.
Many Iranians had begun employing new tactics to
continue protests while avoiding arrest, she said.
Bureau Report
