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Human rights violations in Iran appear to be increasing, with political activists, journalists and others often facing persecution, a U.N. rights investigator said in a report released on Monday.

The U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed of the Maldives, said in a report to the U.N. General Assembly that the Iranian government had not allowed him to visit Iran while making his assessment.

Shaheed has "catalogued an increasing trend of alleged violations of the fundamental rights of the people, guaranteed under international law, and stresses the need for greater transparency from the Iranian authorities," he said in the report released by the United Nations.

Among the abuses by the Iranian justice system that Shaheed has investigated are "torture, cruel, or degrading treatment of detainees, the imposition of the death penalty in the absence of proper judicial safeguards, (and) the status of women," according to the report.