This is the news in brief from the United Nations.

Iran: top rights expert welcomes Swedish verdict in mass executions case

The conviction of an Iranian official by a Swedish court for his part in the mass execution and torture of political prisoners has been welcomed by a top UN-appointed independent rights expert.

The development came after Hamid Nouri – a former Iranian prosecutor and prison officer - was arrested at a Stockholm airport in 2019.

He was later charged with war crimes and the mass murder of detainees in Iran in 1988, in line with an order issued by then Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini.

Iranian authorities have denied the summary executions and enforced disappearances at the heart of the case, which civil society organisations believe involved the deaths of several thousand political prisoners.

Welcoming the life sentence handed down to Mr. Nouri in Sweden, UN Special Rapporteur on Iran, Javaid Rehman urged other States to take on similar investigations and to prosecute serious human rights offenders, using the principle of universal jurisdiction.

COVID caused 25 million children to miss out on vaccines in 2021

For the second year in a row, because of COVID-19, tens of millions of children have missed out on key vaccines for preventable diseases, UN agencies WHO and UNICEF said on Friday.

New data on global immunization coverage published by the World Health Organization and the UN Children’s Fund revealed that 2021 saw the largest sustained decline in childhood vaccinations in nearly 30 years.

One of the key markers used to gauge vaccine coverage is how many children are given their third shot for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, commonly called DTP.

Dr Kate O’Brien, Director of Immunization, Vaccines & Biologicals at WHO, said that the percentage of children who received DTP fell by five  per cent between 2019 and 2021, to just 81 per cent coverage overall.

This came after a three per cent decline in vaccine shots in 2020 and a further two per cent decrease last year:

“In 2021 there were 25 million children who missed out on one or more doses of their DTP containing vaccines, through routine immunization services. This threatens increased outbreaks, deaths, and for some who survived the illnesses that they otherwise would not have gotten, livelong consequences”.

UNICEF described the drop in vaccine coverage as the “largest continued drop in vaccination in a generation”.

The UN Children’s Fund also expressed deep concern about the potentially dire consequences for malnourished children in lower and middle-income countries whose immune systems had been weakened by conflict, climate shocks, COVID and now the global food and fuel crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Tunisia: Presidential decrees ‘sap judicial independence’, says rights expert

In Geneva, a top UN expert expressed deep concern on Friday about the right to a fair trial in Tunisia, and the status of the judiciary, after 57 judges were fired last month by Presidential decree.

Diego García-Sayán, UN Special Rapporteur on Independence of Judges and Lawyers, said that he was concerned about access to justice for all people in Tunisia, following President Kais Saied’s actions.

His warning also follows the President’s move to dissolve the High Judicial Council in February, which the rights expert described as the main guarantor of judicial independence in Tunisia since the 2011 revolution - and the country’s democratic transition.

Following the dismissal of the High Judicial Council, another presidential decree replaced it with an interim panel whose judges could be appointed, promoted and disciplined by the President, the Special Rapporteur said.

He noted in a statement that the judiciary in Tunisia has suspended the strike it has been leading for more than a month.

But three judges are still on hunger strike which they began on 22 June, and two others have joined since 6 July.

Daniel Johnson, UN News.