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Iran Lambasts West’s Instrumental Use of Human Rights

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi condemned the western countries’ politically-tainted attitude towards human rights, saying that the West is using human rights issues as an instrument to exert pressure on Iran.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting with Benin’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Nassirou Arifari Bako here in Tehran on Saturday, Salehi reminded that Iran has good ties with the UN Human Rights Council.

Asked to comment on the UN appointment of a human rights rapporteur on Iran, Salehi said, “Once again, the US and certain Western countries have striven to misuse the human rights as a political tool to exert pressure on Iran.”

He stressed that human rights conditions in Iran are much better than many world countries, and dismissed the western pressures as “ineffective”.

“Definitely, this (instrumental use of human rights) will lead to nowhere,” Salehi reiterated.

Meantime, the Iranian foreign minister underlined Iran’s readiness to continue its ties with the UN Human Rights Council and the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

In a move spearheaded by the United States, the UN Human Rights Council in June named former Maldivian Foreign Minister Ahmed Shaheed as its human rights investigator on the Islamic Republic.

Iran said the move is politically motivated, calling on international bodies to investigate the West’s human rights violations.

Iran has always lashed out at the western countries for using human rights issues as a tool and pretext for pressurizing independent states to conceal their own crimes and wrong deeds.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in November lambasted continued violation of human rights by certain European countries, and asked them to listen to the demands of their people.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry in November issued a report on the violation of human rights by the US inside and outside its borders, and urged Washington to join the international conventions which prohibit such crimes.

It was stressed in the Foreign Ministry report that the United States, as a self-proclaimed standard bearer of defense for the human rights in the world, has despite the international community and the UN demand, and even despite President Barack Obama’s promise, still not shut down the horrendous Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prisons.

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