Petitioners urge UN to help ease Iran sanctions

Tehran, May 22, IRNA - Iran healthcare professionals have signed a petition calling the United Nations to promptly address the case of US arbitrary sanctions against Iran. "As the President of the Iranian Medical Council and representative of Iranian healthcare professionals, I would like to draw your attention to this humanitarian approach by petitioners to ease Iran sanctions," President of the Iranian Medical Council Mohammad Reza Zafarghandi said in his letter to UN. "The unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the JCPOA and re-imposition of the US sanctions has resulted in an impending healthcare crisis affecting vulnerable patients in Iran which are dramatically affected by the COVID-19," the letter reads. "As access to healthcare is a basic human right, extension of the US sanctions to include medical drugs and devices is a clear violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and counter accepted moral and common decency," it added. "In response to unjust US sanctions against Iran, an online petition was created by Iranian healthcare professionals addressed to the Secretary General of the United Nations to lift or ease all unilateral sanctions against Iran." "The petition was signed by more than 700 healthcare professionals. Earlier, Alireza Marandi, President of Iran Academy of Medical Sciences in a letter had warned against the illegality of US sanctions on food and drugs. "We expect the UN to act against the United States' incessant violation of human rights. When will the lives of children, and women and men across the globe be protected from the criminal behavior of the United States? Until when should cancer, organ transplant and other patients fear death because they are deliberately denied medicine and medical equipment?" Repeatedly "we are saying that history will not judge kindly" the deafening silence of international human rights organizations, especially the United Nations for their indifference when it comes to the suffering illegally imposed on the ordinary people of Iran. This indifference will further discredit the United Nations in the eyes of people around the world. "We are waiting for the United Nations to take immediate and serious measures against the United States for their criminal actions which are in defiance of all international conventions and norms".