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Iran rejects UN’s human rights claims

Iran’s Judiciary has dismissed accusations about alleged rights violations in Iran, rejecting UN’s appointment of a special human rights rapporteur for the country.

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

“On the issue of human rights, we will cooperate with the United Nations, but within a rational framework and not as an instrument against our country,” said Iran’s Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani.

Recalling numerous cases of rights violations by Western powers, Ayatollah Larijani questioned the world body’s silence on the killing and torture of civilians during the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“The US [is the one] that invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and massacred many people while proclaiming [support for] human rights. However, we have not forgotten [what went on at] Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prisons,” he added, referring to notorious US-run detention centers in Cuba and Iraq respectively.

Ayatollah Larijani ruled out the West’s attempts to impose what it regards as human rights principles on other nations and cultures.

“We cannot agree with the human rights that they are pushing on us from their collection of Liberalist culture, since our own religious establishment can have a [comprehensive] rights system based on its own tenets,” he said.

The senior Iranian official expressed serious concerns that the issue of human rights has become a political instrument to pile up pressure against those that challenge the unjust domination of  Western powers.

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