Judiciary officials said the center was acting as an illegal political party, and had contacts with local and foreign organizations, local media reported.
The raid came shortly before the center was to host a celebration for the 60th anniversary of Human Rights Day.

Ms Ebadi, who has repeatedly criticized Iran’s human rights record, said it would not stop her supporters’ work.
“We will meet again somewhere else and will continue to support the rights of activists and political prisoners,” she told the Associated Press.
In a statement, the judiciary said it had ordered the closure of the Human Rights Defenders Center in Tehran because it did not have the required legal permits, the Mehr news agency reported.

It had also been “promoting illegal activities such as issuing statements on different occasions, sending letters to domestic and foreign organizations, holding press conferences, meetings and conferences” which created an atmosphere “of media publicity against the establishment in recent years”, the statement added.

Ms Ebadi became the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for work that included promoting the rights of women and children in Iran and worldwide.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7794788.stm

Last month the Home Office revealed that 2,324,879 recorded criminals (40 percent) in England and Wales did not actually have a DNA sample held on the NDNAD. At the same time, the Home Office reported that 857,366 innocent individuals’ profiles are currently held on the NDNAD.

Liberty’s Director Shami Chakrabarti said:

“This is one of the most strongly worded judgments that Liberty has ever seen from the Court of Human Rights. That Court has used human rights principles and common sense to deliver the privacy protection of innocent people that the British Government has shamefully failed to deliver.”

The Home Office is expected to hold a consultation about the retention of DNA following today’s judgment. The judgment would not have affected the outcome of any of the recent, high profile, convictions where DNA evidence has been a significant factor.

Liberty’s Legal Officer Anna Fairclough said:

“Forty percent of Britain’s criminals are not on this database, but hundreds of thousands of innocent people are. Sweeping up the innocent with the guilty does not help fight crime. The Court of Human Rights has protected the privacy of British people so poorly let down by our own government.”

Key passages of Grand Chamber Judgment of S and Marper v the United Kingdom include:

● The Court was struck by the blanket and indiscriminate nature of the power of retention in England and Wales. In particular, the data in question could be retained irrespective of the nature or gravity of the offence with which the individual was originally suspected or of the age of the suspected offender; the retention was not time-limited; and there existed only limited possibilities for an acquitted individual to have the data removed from the nationwide database or to have the materials destroyed.

● The Court expressed a particular concern at the risk of stigmatization, stemming from the fact that persons in the position of the applicants, who had not been convicted of any offense and were entitled to the presumption of innocence, were treated in the same way as convicted persons. It was true that the retention of the applicants’ private data could not be equated with the voicing of suspicions. Nonetheless, their perception that they were not being treated as innocent was heightened by the fact that their data were retained indefinitely in the same way as the data of convicted persons, while the data of those who had never been suspected of an offense were required to be destroyed.

● It observed that the protection afforded by Article 8 of the Convention would be unacceptably weakened if the use of modern scientific techniques in the criminal justice system were allowed at any cost and without carefully balancing the potential benefits of the extensive use of such techniques against important private life interests. Any State claiming a pioneer role in the development of new technologies bore special responsibility for striking the right balance in this regard.

●In the Court’s view, the capacity of DNA profiles to provide a means of identifying genetic relationships between individuals was in itself sufficient to conclude that their retention interfered with the right to the private life of those individuals. The possibility created by DNA profiles for drawing inferences about ethnic origin made their retention all the more sensitive and susceptible of affecting the right to private life. The Court concluded that the retention of both cellular samples and DNA profiles amounted to an interference with the applicants’ right to respect for their private lives, within the meaning of Article 8.1 of the Convention.

Notes to Editors

Background on S and Marper v United Kingdom

1. Liberty agrees that a DNA database can be a valuable crime detection tool. However, repeated legislative changes have rolled out retention policy by stealth so that anyone arrested for even very minor offences can have their DNA held for the rest of their life, even if they have been mistakenly arrested. DNA is relevant only to a small number of serious offenses, mainly involving sexual assault or violence. Liberty believes that the correct and proportionate approach to the National DNA Database would be based on allowing retention of DNA for those convicted or cautioned of these types of serious offense. This approach is the one adopted by nearly every EU and other comparable state.

2. S & Marper v United Kingdom, heard in the European Court of Human Rights on 27 February 2008, establishes if the automatic retention of DNA samples, profiles and fingerprints from those who are not convicted of any offense is a breach of the right to a private life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The government has repeatedly said it has no plans to create a universal database because it does not think the population is ready for the civil liberties implications of that. Liberty believes that the present arbitrary basis on which the database is built is both unsustainable and unjustifiable.

3. S & Marper concerns the legality of amendments to s64 Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 which enable the police to retain bodily samples, DNA profiles and fingerprints from anyone arrested for a recordable offense, whether or not they are charged, prosecuted or convicted. Virtually all offenses (except the most trivial) are recordable. Current Government policy is to retain this information, including DNA on the National DNA Database (NDNAD), until the individual dies or reaches 100 years old. Samples, profiles and fingerprints can be destroyed on request in exceptional circumstances.

Facts

S was arrested in January 2001 when he was an 11 year old boy. He has no previous convictions, cautions or warnings. He was charged with the offence of attempted robbery and his fingerprints and samples were taken. Following a trial on 14.6.01 S was acquitted. He subsequently sought through his solicitors the destruction of his samples and fingerprints, but the police refused because of the legislative amendments referred to above (which came into force with retrospective effect on 11.5.01).

Marper was 38 when he was arrested in March 2001. He had no previous convictions. He was charged with harassment of his partner and his fingerprints and DNA samples were taken. By the time of a pre-trial review in May 2001 he had reconciled with his partner who no longer wished to press charges. The proceedings were discontinued. The police refused his request for the destruction of his samples and fingerprints.

European Court of Human Rights

S & Marper applied to the ECtHR to raise the following legal questions:

1.Is there any justification for keeping the original bodily samples from which DNA profiles are generated? Whilst the profiles reveal a limited amount of information about an individual, the samples contain that person’s complete genetic makeup and to retain them requires a very strong justification which the government has not supplied. The government says the samples are needed for quality control purposes and in case it might need to upgrade the database in future. Liberty does not accept this. A future upgrade of the database is a hypothetical possibility which does not justify retention of the samples now. It is likely that the database will soon be so large that an upgrade of the all the profiles is in any event an unrealistic option.

2. Is there sufficient justification for keeping DNA profiles from those not convicted of any offense? Although the profiles (a numerical representation of part of a person’s DNA) may be difficult to decipher to the untrained eye, there are a number of major privacy issues that arise from their retention on the database.

a)  Research is carried out on the database without the consent of those whose profiles are on it. This is only supposed to be for the ‘prevention or detection of crime’ but that is interpreted very broadly so that research into ethnicity for example would be acceptable provided it can be loosely associated with crime prevention or detection.

b)  The NDNAD has an electronic link to the Police National Computer to enable the police to use it for intelligence purposes. The PNC is accessible from over 120,000 terminals in the UK, including non-police bodies. Previously, records held on the PNC were ‘weeded’ so that if you were acquitted or no proceedings were brought, the PNC record would be removed after around 40 days. Now, because of the link between the NDNAD and the PNC and because DNA profiles are kept until death/age 100, the PNC records are also kept. As a solution to the legal implications of this, the police propose to mask some of the information from ‘non-police users’ of the PNC but the system is not yet fully operational. Further, the Information Commissioner (ICO) considers that for the police to keep all this information even for themselves breaches the Data Protection Act 1998.

3. Britain’s DNA database is proportionately the largest in the world. Approximately 4.5 million people have their DNA permanently retained on the NDNAD.

UNITED NATIONS, October 29 — The UN itself may be engaged or complicit in extra-judicial executions, the UN’s special rapporteur on the topic has told Inner City Press. Concerns about the UN’s own practices were echoed by the rapporteur on the promotion and protection of ,human rights, while countering terrorism. On Friday, law professor Philip Alston told journalists that he limits his inquiries to execution cases that are not being effectively investigated by the responsible authorities. Inner City Press asked Prof. Aston if, given that the UN system does not discipline its peacekeepers but rather allows them to return to their home countries, he has made such inquiries with the UN. Yes, he said, “the UN has a long way to go,” adding that he intends to make further inquiries with the UN.

It emerged that he has already written to the UN’s mission in Haiti. Inner City Press raised to further example: allegations of torture and even executions by peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the case of the shooting death of Kosovar protesters by Romanian peacekeepers using 13-year old rubber bullets. These peacekeepers returned to Romania, where neither they nor the officials who, with presumptive criminal negligence, supplied long-out-of-date rubber bullets, have faced any justice.
The UN rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, had been quoted that “as long as the military in Nepal tortures, no (Nepalese) troops should be consulted for peacekeeping missions” of the UN. Inner City Press asked about the quote, and Nowak specified that he had made a finding of torture in Nepal, in 2005, and that the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DKPO) should able stricter scrutiny to peacekeepers offered by countries engaged in torture. He said that he personally had spoken with a Nepali officer who served as a UN peacekeeper and also admitted to engaging in torture. Video here. Nowak said similar issues exist as to Jordan, in terms of torture, and cited the unresolved case of sexual abuse allegations against Moroccan peacekeepers in Cote d’Ivoire.

UN headquarters in Geneva: human rights are a two-way street
At Monday’s noon briefing, Inner City Press asked UN spokesperson Michele Montas if Nowak had spoken with, or would be listened to by, the UN’s DPKO. Ms. Montas said that Nowak as a special rapporteur directs his recommendations to the Human Rights Council. But is DPKO listening? A report emerged of more Fijian peacekeepers headed to Sudan. In light of previous UN statements about not accepting more Fijian peacekeepers until Fiji is returned to democracy, Inner City Press inquired into this as well. Ms. Montas responded that seven Fijians initially slated to serve the UN in Iraq had been kept in Fiji, based on “criminal” issues. Video here, from Minute 22:21. Whether this indicates DPKO listening to the issues raised by human rights experts like Nowak remains to be seen.
Finnish academic Martin Scheinin, the rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism, also said that the UN could and should do more. Inner City Press asked about the UN having “cast its lot” with Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government, even as TFG figures began openly characterizing as “terrorists” women and children of clans which generally oppose the TFG. Scheinin said that while he is just beginning inquiry into Somalia, he is of the view that the UN Security Council, which calls on member states to respect human rights while implementing its resolution, should require the same of the UN itself. Video here. He also said that human rights should become a formal part of the work of the UN’s Counter Terrorism Committee, which for now is set to sun-set by the end of 2007. Scheinin predicted, like most including Slovak Ambassador Peter Burian, the Council’s liaison, that the CTC will be continued. But will it give more place to human rights? We’ll see.
UN rapporteur Paul Hunt, beyond meeting with pharmaceutical companies, was one of five rapporteurs who tried to go to Guantanamo Bay. Inner City Press asked about this; Hunt said that the U.S. invited three of the five, and disallowed two. While Hunt did not say it, he was one of the two who was disallowed. The five issued a scathing report, without having made the visit.
Following his last appearance before the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee, the outgoing rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, told reporters that “bio-fuels are a crime against humanity.” Inner City Press asked if he knew the view of Ban Ki-moon. Ziegler said he had raised the issue to Ban at a lunch on the 8th floor of the UN’s Palais in Geneva, but could not ascertain Ban’s thoughts. Inner City Press asked Ban’s spokesperson, who said, “That is a controversial issue.”
Ziegler mentioned that North Korea had not allowed him to enter the country. Meanwhile the UN’s rapporteur for that country, Vitit Muntarbhorn, spoke again without having entered the country. He appeared to be trying to convince the Kim Jong-il government to let him in, by echoing claims by the World Food Program that access is being given, and that there is “no aid without access.” In fact, WFP staffers on the ground say different, click here for that.