( CNN ) -- While the world 's attention has been focused on tumult in the Arab world , Iran has cracked down with impunity on dissent and is feared to come down even harder as elections approach , Amnesty International said in a sweeping report . The global human rights monitor documented `` widespread and persistent human rights violations in Iran . '' `` It is essential if further mass human rights violations are to be avoided that the international community act on behalf of the hundreds , if not thousands , of prisoners of conscience and political prisoners imprisoned after unfair trials in Iran , '' Amnesty International said in the report . Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini celebrated the popular revolts in Tunisia , Egypt and Bahrain , saying that they reflected an `` Islamic awakening '' based on Iran 's 1979 revolution . But since the 2009 election , the Islamic republic has repressed similar voices within its own borders , Amnesty International said . `` Since the 2009 crackdown , the authorities have steadily cranked up repression in law and practice , and tightened their grip on the media , '' according to the Amnesty International report , which came out just hours after the United Nations Human Rights Council convened for its latest session in Geneva . `` In Iran today , you put yourself at risk if you do anything that might fall outside the increasingly narrow confines of what the authorities deem socially or politically acceptable , '' said Ann Harrison , of Amnesty 's Middle East and North Africa program . `` Anything from setting up a social group on the Internet , forming or joining an NGO or expressing your opposition to the status quo can land you in prison , '' she said . Iran has defended its record before the United Nations Human Rights Council and charged that Western critics are politicizing the issue of human rights for their own gain . Yet Amnesty International said Iran has deemed demonstrations , public debate and the formation of groups and associations a threat to `` national security '' punishable by long prison sentences or even death . `` Lawyers have been jailed along with their clients . Foreign satellite television channels have been jammed . Newspapers have been banned , '' the advocacy group said . Mahdieh Mohammadi Gorgani , wife of detained journalist Ahmad Zeidabadi , describes in the report how an interrogator told her husband , `` We are ordered to crush you . And if you do not cooperate , we can do anything we want with you . And if you do not write the interrogation papers , we will force you to eat them . '' Amnesty International said blogger Mehdi Khazali was this month sentenced to four and a half years in prison followed by 10 years in `` internal exile , '' plus sentenced to pay a fine on charges believed to include `` spreading propaganda against the system , '' `` gathering and colluding against national security '' and `` insulting officials . '' Amnesty International called on the world to pressure Iran to amend laws that restrict rights of expression and assembly , as well as to allow for public debate before Iranians cast their votes in March . It also called for an end to jail time for people who protest peacefully and independent investigations of alleged human rights violations . The issue of human rights , said Amnesty International , can get lost as the international community scrutinizes Iran 's nuclear program . `` For Iranians facing this level of repression , it can be dispiriting that discussions about their country in diplomatic circles can seem to focus mainly on the nuclear program at the expense of human rights , '' Harrison said .
A new Amnesty International report documents what is described as repression in Iran . The human rights advocacy group urges the international community to take action . `` We are ordered to crush you , '' one interrogator told a detainee , according to the report . Things may get worse with elections around the corner , Amnesty says .