Impact Iran, in partnership with London-based Small Media, launched a new interactive data visualization and analysis of Iran's progress on commitments made to improve its human rights situation at the United Nations. During its last Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the UN Human Rights Council in 2010, Iran accepted 126 recommendations and vowed it would respect and comply with its international human rights obligations.  Yet, to date, Iran has fallen short on the majority of its UPR promises.

Impact Iran's interactive visualization is being launched ahead of the Islamic Republic's second-round UPR, scheduled on 31 October in Geneva, to give governments, journalists, and stakeholders an opportunity to see Iran's progress on its existing UPR pledges. The site can be accessed directly as well as from ImpactIran.org. 

"Until now, no one has ever tried to visualize this important human rights process, due to its complex nature," said Stina Backer, Director of Digital Media & Advocacy for Small Media. "What we've created is remarkable in that it presents extremely complicated and diverse information in a bilingual, accessible format for many different audiences."

The UPR is a peer review, where governments volunteer to let other UN member states review their human rights records. During the review Iran, like other countries, decided which of the hundreds of recommendations made by dozens of UN members for improving its record to accept, and which to reject.

The "UPR IRAN" interactive data visualization allows users to closely analyze recommendations made to Iran, and to filter them by country, human rights issue, or performance. Users can explore areas where Iran is making progress or under-performing, and they are able to access real-life case studies that illustrate the human rights abuses that are still occurring in the country.

Iran received recommendations from 51 countries, such as Brazil, the Czech Republic, Bangladesh, and Germany. By doing so, Iran committed to, amongst other things, strengthening the rights of women and religious minorities, expanding access to higher education, and guaranteeing that its laws do not infringe upon freedom of speech. Unfortunately, Impact Iran found that to date many of the Iranian government's UPR commitments are "not implemented."

For example, Iran accepted recommendations from the Government's of Chile, the Netherlands, and others to improve protections against torture and ill treatment of detainees. However, reported acts of prisoner abuse, such as the recent beating of imprisoned human rights defender Mohammad Sadiq Kaboudvand, continue to emerge from the country.

Indeed, Impact Iran found that the Iranian government partially implemented 30 recommendations, mostly dealing with issues such as health, education and economic development, effectively implemented five, but failed to implement 81 recommendations.

"As Iran's second UPR approaches, it has never been more important that we take measures to ensure the Iranian government keeps its human rights promises," said Mani Mostofi, Director of Impact Iran. "This website provides the international community with an additional tool to do that."

"Small Media's primary focus is to increase the flow of information in closed societies, but due to the nature of these societies, which are not transparent, it's often difficult to access accurate data," Backer said. "Working with Impact Iran on the UPR project has given us a unique opportunity to portray Iran's human rights record through a lens that the Iranian government itself takes very seriously."