Official: No Room for Iranians’ ‘Right to Life’, ‘Right to Health’ in UN HR Report

“Surprisingly, there is no trace, in the Report, of the death of dozens of innocent children and hundreds of innocent patients who lost their lives as a consequence of their difficulty to access medicine and medical equipment resulting from the implementation and enforcement of cruel, illegal and criminal sanctions by the US regime, which constitutes a blatant and utter violation of the “right to life” “and the” right to health “of thousands of Iranian citizens,” Deputy Judiciary Chief and Head of the Iranian Judiciary’s High Council for Human Rights Ali Baqeri Kani wrote in a detailed letter to clarify the ample ambiguities of the recent report of Javaid Rehman on what the latter calls “Human Rights Situation in Iran”. 

“Apparently from the point of view of the author of this report, children and patients affected by the sanctions are not considered, at all, as human beings, so that a small portion of the report to be devoted to expressing the violation of their most obvious, fundamental and unquestionable rights, i.e. the “right to life” and the “right to health”,” Baqeri Kani went on to say.

“According to the head of the Center for Disease Control and Treatment of the Ministry of Health, Treatment and Medical Education of Iran, the cruel and illegal US sanctions have posed a serious death threat to the lives of many patients with MP, and according to the CEO of the Iranian Thalassemia Association, since 2018 a large number of thalassemia patients lost their lives as a result of sanctions and the lack of medicine; and according to the former president of the Iranian Hemophilia Association, the US sanctions caused disability of hundreds of patients; and according to the head of the Iranian Epidermolysis Bullosa House, 20 innocent butterfly disease children (EB) have lost their lives due to lack of access to medicine and the needed dressings,” he continued.

“This question has occupied the minds of all fair and impartial observers as to how a significant part of the Special Rapporteur’s report is devoted to an allegation by a terrorist group or hostile to the Iranian people about the situation of one or more individuals whose rights have been protected and the necessary response on their case, has been already provided , but this report  has not made the slightest reference to the issue which has affected the people of Iran, regardless of race, color, gender, religion, belief, political affiliation, social background, financial status, wealth and place of birth, and it has even affected those who the Special Rapporteur claims to be following up their situation,” the official stressed.

“It is fortunate that the situation of a prisoner in Iran is so important to the Special Rapporteur that he devotes a paragraph (paragraph 12) of his 65-paragraph report to it, but what is not comprehendible is that, in this very report which is claimed to be in connection with “human rights”, it does not attach any value to human lives, on a large scale, and in relation to innocent people,” Baqeri Kani further explained.

“Failure of the report to refer to the death of dozens of innocent children and hundreds of innocent patients who lost their lives as a consequence of their difficulty to access medicine and medical equipment resulting from the implementation and enforcement of cruel, illegal and criminal sanctions by the US regime, which constitutes a blatant and utter violation of the “right to life” “and the” right to health “of thousands of Iranian citizens, may not and cannot be vindicated and justified,  except that, apparently from the point of view of the author of this report, children and patients affected by the sanctions are not considered, at all, as human beings, so that a small portion of the report to be devoted to expressing the violation of their most obvious, fundamental and unquestionable rights, i.e. the “right to life” and the “right to health”,” he added.

“This reflects the politicized approach of the Rapporteur and his defined mission to convey the allegations and accusations of terrorist groups and dissidents of the Iranian nation,” Iran’s Deputy Judiciary stated.

In relevant remarks, he censured the UN Special Rapporteur’s ignoring of the wording, and documents of the UN in his report on Iran’s human rights, noting that the move has been taken in a bid to satisfy his masters to appoint him once again.

 “As an instance for the proverb which reads “No matter how sharp it is, a knife will never cut its own handle “, the Special Rapporteur has refused to comment on the crimes of the countries which he hopes that they will renew his mandate again,” Baqeri Kani said.  

“The use of the word “sanction” and the lack of use of terms in the Human Rights Council literature, i.e. Unilateral Coercive Measures (UCM), is another aspect of the Special Rapporteur’s biased attitude in the recent report,” he went on to say.

“On the other hand, the absolute indifference to the findings and documents of the Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, who in his recent report addressed a number of cases of the effects and consequences of the US regime’s illegal, oppressive and criminal sanctions against the Iranian nation,” the official reiterated.

^{Ali Baqeri Kani}

Baqeri Kani enumerated 22 mainly medical and health domains that have been banned by the US but have not been addressed in Rehman’s report.   

He continued, “It is also worth noting that the oppressive sanctions against the Iranian nation, which have been carried out in accompany with Western countries that sponsored the appointment of the rapporteur, have left heavy financial losses and many physical and psychological consequences, and some of its financial and human consequences are brought up in the report of the Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, as follows:

Lack of access by doctors to scientific information on the Corona virus.
Depriving many Iranians of the right to study in universities around the world,
Death of patients with chronic diseases due to limited access to treatment,

Psychological harassment of patients due to lack of access to medicine,

The negative impact of sanctions on foreign nationals residing in Iran, especially Afghans,
Violation of the rights of Iranian children by sanctions,
Violation of the rights of Iranian women by sanctions,
Violation of millions of immigrants’ rights by sanctions,
Violation of the right to food due to sanctions,
Violation of the rights of Iranian citizens through sanctions against natural and legal persons.”