Iran urges intl. community to condemn US-Israeli strikes on telecom infrastructure

The Iranian ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva has called on the international community to condemn the illegal US-Israeli aggression that has targeted the country’s telecommunications infrastructure, among other civilian sites.

Ali Bahreini made the remarks in a recent letter sent to Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Doreen Bogdan-Martin.

He said that unprecedented airstrikes on Iran’s sovereign telecommunications infrastructure “constitute a series of grave and unprecedented violations of the ITU Constitution, the Convention, and the Radio Regulations.”

He also denounced the unprovoked military assault by the US and the Israeli regime against Iran as a clear and serious breach of international law, including the UN Charter, International Humanitarian Law, and International Human Rights Law.

The anti-Iran strikes have directly targeted critical civilian infrastructure within residential neighborhoods such as hospitals, fuel depots, police stations, stadiums, parks, schools, and even ambulances, he added.

The systematic bombardment of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) has resulted in total or partial destruction of the broadcasting headquarters, as well as several terrestrial transmission stations.

Meanwhile, the Iranian envoy referred to preliminary assessments that show the enemy attacks have inflicted damage worth more than $150 million on Iran’s telecommunications infrastructure and disconnected over 15 million civilians from public broadcasting services.

He also announced the martyrdom of two technical personnel in the line of duty while maintaining civilian communication links.

“Under Article 79 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, journalists and their technical support staff are protected as civilians; any deliberate attack on them is a war crime,” Bahraini emphasized.

“Furthermore, the destruction of broadcasting facilities represents the ‘lethal weaponization of censorship,’ violating Articles 6 and 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which safeguard the right to life and the freedom to seek and impart information.”

Additionally, the envoy urged the Radiocommunication Bureau and the General Secretariat to issue a formal condemnation of the US-Israeli air raids and raise the issue at an upcoming meeting of the Radio Regulations Board (RRB).

He further demanded the suspension of the privileges of the aggressor regimes regarding frequency allocations until their compliance with the ITU Constitution and international law.

He also called for binding safeguards to protect civilian telecommunications infrastructure from military targeting.

The US and Israel launched their criminal act of aggression against Iran on February 28 by assassinating Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, along with senior military commanders, in flagrant violation of the country’s sovereignty.

The enemies have deliberately targeted Iran’s civilian infrastructure and energy facilities, killing hundreds of Iranian people.

Iran began to swiftly retaliate against the terrorist military assault by launching barrages of missile and drone attacks on the Israeli-occupied lands as well as on US bases and assets in regional countries.

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