GENEVA (Reuters) – Iran is cracking down on activists and their lawyers, meting out harsh sentences in an effort to quash pro-democracy activities, United Nations human rights experts said on Friday.

In a joint statement, the independent experts called for the immediate release of human rights defenders including Narges Mohammadi, whom they said was rearrested on April 21 to serve a six-year prison sentence handed down by an appeals court.

“The conviction and extremely harsh sentencing of human rights defenders is an indication of mounting repression against the legitimate activities of human rights defenders and represents a serious setback for the protection of human rights in Iran,” said Ahmed Shaheed, U.N. special rapporteur on Iran.

Thousands of opposition supporters have been detained since the disputed 2009 presidential election won by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, including scores of senior reformist figures.

Mohammadi, former vice-president of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre, founded by rights lawyer and Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi, was convicted of “assembly and collusion against national security, membership in the Defenders of Human Rights Centre and propaganda against the regime,” the statement said.

She is said to be in “extremely fragile” health, it said. A U.N. official told Reuters that Mohammadi is believed to be held in Tehran’s Evin Prison.

“Human rights defenders play a fundamental role in ensuring a democratic society which respects human rights. They must be allowed to carry out their work without facing intimidation, harassment, arrest and prosecution,” said Margaret Sekaggya, special rapporteur on human rights defenders.

GENEVA (Reuters) – Nearly 3 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran must be encouraged to go home to help stabilize their country and boost prospects for peace, the United Nations said on Wednesday, calling for $1.9 billion in aid to help it happen.

The U.N. refugee agency presented a Geneva conference with a 3-year plan – backed by all three countries – for the voluntary repatriation and reintegration of Afghanis, some of whom have spent decades in exile.

“The ability for refugees to return in safety and dignity and become productive citizens in their communities upon return is also integral to the stability and progress of Afghanistan,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said at the start of two-day talks.

Diplomats met on a day when a suicide bomb attack, apparently by the Taliban, killed seven people in Kabul hours after U.S. President Barack Obama visited the city to agree a long-term U.S. role for when foreign troops leave by end-2014.

The U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan said the refugee issue was a vital part of securing the country’s long-term future.

“The key issue now is to reduce the many uncertainties facing the people and government of Afghanistan. This (refugee) strategy can be an important part of reducing some of those uncertainties,” Michael Keating told the talks.

More than 5.7 million Afghans have returned home in the last decade following the U.S.-led invasion and they constitute nearly a quarter of the population, according to the UNHCR.

GENEVA (Reuters) – Fiscal austerity and tough labor reforms have failed to create jobs, leading to an “alarming” situation in the global employment market that shows no sign of recovering, the International Labour Organization said on Sunday.

In advanced countries, especially in Europe, employment is not expected to return to pre-crisis levels of 2008 until the end of 2016 — two years later than it previously predicted — in line with a slowdown in production.

An estimated 196 million people were unemployed worldwide at the end of last year, forecast to rise to 202 million in 2012 for a rate of 6.1 percent, according to the United Nations agency’s annual flagship report, “World of Work Report 2012″.

“Austerity has not produced more economic growth,” Raymond Torres, director of the ILO Institute for International Labour Studies, told a news briefing.

“The ill-conceived labor market reforms in the short-term cannot work either. These reforms in situations of crisis tend to lead to more job destruction and very little job creation at least in the short-term,” said Torres, the report’s lead author.

Long-term jobseekers are demoralized and an average of 40 percent of job seekers in their prime (aged 25-49) in advanced countries have been without work for more than a year, the report found.

Youth jobless rates have soared, increasing the risk of social unrest especially in parts of Africa and the Middle East.

GENEVA, April 27 (Reuters) – Fifteen more ceasefire monitors of a total advance team of 30 are expected to be in Syria by Monday and every effort is being made to deploy the full mission of up to 300 observers, the spokesman for international mediator Kofi Annan said on Friday.

“We expect the 30 will be on the ground by the end of April, on Monday,” Annan spokesman Ahmad Fawzi told Reuters in Geneva.

“There is no delay, on the contrary it has been an extremely fast deployment of the 15 who are the ground today plus civilian support. They need administration and are setting up headquarters for the new mission.

“It is a whole process,” he said. “They are deploying at remarkable speed.”

The announcement of the deployment came as Syria’s pro-government Addounia television said three people were killed and 10 wounded in an “apparent suicide bombing” in the central Damascus district of Midan on Friday.

Syrian activists have been dismayed at the pace of observer deployment. A senior U.N. official said this week it would take a month to put the first 100 monitors on the ground, though the world body is working to speed up the pace.

Within 48 hours of the United Nations Security Council authorising an advance team of 30 on April 14, six monitors were patrolling Syrian streets, Fawzi said.

GENEVA (Reuters) – Syria’s infrastructure has been significantly damaged in more than a year of conflict, water and electricity supplies have been disrupted and many families cannot meet their basic daily needs, a United Nations mission has found.

A confidential U.N. plan for responding to humanitarian needs, based on a joint assessment carried out with Syrian officials from March 18-26, was obtained by Reuters on Thursday.

The United Nations is preparing a major aid operation and its “Syria Response Plan” forms the basis of a $180 million appeal presented to donor countries last Friday at closed-door talks in Geneva.

More than 9,000 people have been killed in the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, who is under international pressure to honor a U.N.-backed ceasefire that went into force on April 12.

On Thursday, Syria blamed “terrorist” bomb makers for an explosion that damaged a building and killed 16 people in the city of Hama, where hostility to Assad runs deep

At least one million Syrians need humanitarian aid in the 10 provinces the U.N. team visited, most of which reported shortages of essential medicines and sharp rises in food prices, it said.

“Jobs and livelihoods have been disrupted, the cost of … goods has risen and many can no longer meet their basic daily needs or access essential social services due to insecurity and financial strain,” the document said.

BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) – Syria has failed to comply with a pledge to withdraw weapons from cities, and citizens who meet U.N. truce monitors may have been killed, international mediator Kofi Annan will tell the Security Council on Tuesday, his spokesman said.

As violence flared in the Syrian capital Damascus, spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said Annan would ask for a “stronger presence” of monitors to watch over the country’s ragged ceasefire.

Satellite imagery showed Syrian forces had not withdrawn heavy weapons from urban centers and returned to their barracks, as they are required to do under a plan drawn up by Annan, said Fawzi.

“This is unacceptable, and Joint Special Envoy Kofi Annan will be saying this to the Security Council today when he addresses them in closed session,” Fawzi added in remarks on U.N. Television.

Annan had also received credible reports that after monitors left a town, people who met them were approached by Syrian soldiers “or even worse, perhaps killed,” said Fawzi.

Observers from the fledgling United Nations mission visited on Tuesday the central province of Homs, hotbed of a 13-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, as part of efforts to silence the guns 12 days after the accord was struck.

Under its terms, both sides are supposed to adhere to a ceasefire while the army withdraws tanks and heavy weapons from population centers – requirements that the U.N. and France have made clear are not being heeded.

GENEVA (Reuters) – Syria has not made the full military withdrawal it agreed to under a peace plan, mediator Kofi Annan will tell the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, according to his spokesman.

Speaking on U.N. Television, spokesman Ahmad Fawzi also cited “credible reports” that said Syrian forces were intimidating and, in some cases, killing people who speak to U.N. truce mediators in the country.

Satellite imagery showed Syrian forces had not withdrawn all heavy weapons from urban centers and returned to their barracks, as they are required to do under Annan’s six-point peace plan, he said.

“They (Syrian authorities) are claiming that this has happened. Satellite imagery, however, and credible reports show that this has not fully happened, so this is unacceptable, and Joint Special Envoy Kofi Annan will be saying this to the Security Council today when he addresses them in closed session,” Fawzi said.

“We are calling on the Syrian government to fully implement its commitments under the ceasefire,” he said.

Annan, who delivered a speech at Lund University in Sweden on Tuesday, is due to brief the U.N. Security Council later by video link.

“He will be laying out the challenges on the ground, the challenges of monitoring with very few observers, the challenges of launching a political process while there is no cessation of hostilities, because you need a cessation of hostilities to begin a credible process,” Fawzi said.

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations said on Tuesday it aimed to deliver food aid to 500,000 people in Syria “in the coming weeks”, double the number of people it thinks it will have fed by the end of this month.

In a statement, the U.N.’s World Food Programme (WFP) conceded it faced challenges in delivering the food, but said it was increasing its assistance at the request of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and was ready to expand its operations in the country further “when access permits”.

“As the conflict continues, Syrians in areas affected by the violence are struggling to feed their families and WFP is deeply concerned about the potential for food insecurity,” WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin said in the statement.

Elisabeth Byrs, a WFP spokeswoman, told a news conference the agency was aiming to radically increase its efforts in the weeks ahead.

“We are trying to reach 250,000 by the end of April and then double this figure with the goal of reaching half a million in coming weeks,” she told reporters.

“It is true, we face challenges,” she added, clarifying that the 500,000 people who would be supplied were located at different locations across the country of just under 23 million people.

“We hope to have access in the near future and this is the hope of all humanitarian agencies to assist people inside Syria and along the border.”

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations hopes to get permission from the Syrian government in the coming days to send more aid workers to help at least 1 million people in need of urgent assistance, a top U.N. humanitarian official said on Friday.

Syria has recognized there are “serious humanitarian needs” and that action is required, but logistical issues and visas for aid workers are still being discussed, said John Ging, director of operations of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

“Now it’s a question of implementing those plans. This is where we are needing to mobilize more effective engagement with the Syrians to get that plan fully up and running,” Ging said.

“The next step in the process which we want to see concluded in a matter of days … is to get agreement on the operationalisation of the plan and concurrent with that the mobilization of the resources to make it happen,” he said.

It was important to get Syrian agreement on the plan and to mobilize partner aid agencies for what Ging said would be a “major humanitarian operation”.

He was speaking to reporters after the Syrian Humanitarian Forum was held in Geneva to discuss a $180 million assistance plan for six months aimed at helping an estimated 1 million within Syria.

An advance team of U.N. monitors is due to deploy in Syria in the coming week to monitor a fragile ceasefire that has so far failed to stop the bloodshed.

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations should send 300 monitors to Syria as soon as possible to try to stop a wave of killing and violence that a ceasefire has failed to halt, a spokesman for U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan said on Friday.

Seven unarmed U.N. observers are in Syria monitoring a week-old truce, with two to follow on Monday, and the full advance team of 30 due to be deployed in the coming week, the spokesman, Ahmad Fawzi, said.

But preparations are already under way for the arrival of up to 300 more observers, whose deployment he said he hoped the U.N. Security Council would approve in the next two to three days.

“We are preparing for the deployment because we feel that it is going to happen sooner or later because it must happen,” Fawzi told a news briefing in Geneva.

“The situation on the ground is not good, as we all know. It’s a very fragile ceasefire, there are casualties every day, there are incidents every day, and we have to do everything we can to stop what’s going on – the killing, the violence in all forms,” he said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in a progress report on Thursday, said Syria had not fully withdrawn its troops and heavy weapons from towns as agreed under Annan’s peace plan to end 13 months of violence. He recommended raising the number of observers to up to 300.

Like in all U.N. peacekeeping operations, the monitors require support, including vehicles, communications equipment and medical supplies, “all kinds of gear to help them in their very difficult and risky job”, Fawzi said.