November 12, 2025
Your Excellency:
On behalf of the American Jewish Committee (AJC), we write to encourage your government to support resolutions to be considered by the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee that condemn serious human rights violations committed by the Islamic Republic of Iran and Russia. We also urge opposition to a resolution that Russia uses to advance its cynical claim that it is fighting “neo-Nazism” in Ukraine and support for an amendment that rejects Russia's distortion of history for revanchist aims.
Draft resolution L.30, “Situation of Human Rights in Iran,” which the Third Committee will consider on November 19, appropriately expresses alarm about Iran’s commission of gross abuses against women and girls, protesters, dissenters, and human rights defenders, foreign and dual nationals, and others. The resolution also condemns Iran’s widespread use of transnational repression and the increasing commission of violations and abuses against religious minorities in Iran, in particular Baha’is, as well as heightened antisemitism and targeted attacks on Jewish communities.
We also urge your government to vote in favor of draft resolution L.33, “Situation of human rights in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine,” which will be considered on November 19. This resolution appropriately condemns Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and reports of widespread serious violations by Russia in Ukraine, including extrajudicial killing and the use of torture and arbitrary detention, as well as the forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to the Russian Federation.
Finally, we urge your government to support draft amendment L.56 that will insert language into draft resolution L.2 on “combating glorification of Nazism and neo-Nazism,” which Russia has proposed. The fight against Nazism and antisemitism is of extremely critical importance, and Russia undermines that fight by attempting to distort the history of the Holocaust to justify its war of aggression. While amendment L.56 cannot cure resolution L.2 of its flaws, it is nevertheless critical for governments to explicitly reject Russia’s effort to instrumentalize the fight against antisemitism and neo-Nazism for political aims. This resolution and amendment will be considered on November 14.
Thank you for your attention to these concerns and for your support for initiatives at the UNGA’s Third Committee to condemn the commission of serious human rights violations that offend our shared values and imperil our collective efforts to strengthen regional and international security.
Respectfully,
Anne-Sophie Sebban-Bécache
Vice President Europe
Christen Broecker
AJC’s Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights
