Iranian Nobel peace prize winner Shirin Ebadi yesterday 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.
Ms Ebadi, a lawyer and human rights defender who won the prize in 2003, said Mr Ban must gather first-hand information on human rights conditions before drawing up a UN 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.
Ms 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.
In one instance mothers of demonstrators who were killed or arrested wear black and gather in public parks on Saturday nights for silent protests, carrying pictures of their children, she said.
"I ask mothers in Korea and other countries to do the same so that Iranian mothers can be aware that they are not alone," she said.
In another new form of protest, many Iranians shout "God is great" through their windows at night.
Ms Ebadi called for international pressure on Tehran to stop violence but made it clear she opposes economic sanctions or military intervention.
"Economic sanctions would only aggravate the people's hardship," she said.
"It's much more important for the international community to share in Iranians' pain rather than to impose economic sanctions on them."
Ms Ebadi arrived Saturday for a six-day trip to receive this year's Manhae Peace Prize named after a 20th century Korean Buddhist reformer.