UN rights report politically-motivated, biased: Iran

Iran’s Foreign Ministry has dismissed as “biased” and “politically-motivated” a recent report by the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights situation in the Islamic Republic.

“Reports of this kind are compiled based on the viewpoints of a few countries and with the aim of targeting other countries through exploiting international human rights mechanisms,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari said on Wednesday.

Jaberi Ansari said that such “selective” approaches not only fail to improve the situation of human rights in the world, but also have downgraded the issue to the level of political disputes among the countries.

Such approaches will, in the long run, undermine the promotion of human rights on the international level, he added.

In his report presented to the 31st session of the Human Rights Council on March 10, Ahmed Shaheed accused Iran of human rights violations, voicing concern over the alleged increase of execution of drug traffickers.

Jaberi Ansari said the Islamic Republic is committed to its obligations regarding the promotion of human rights in compliance with its constitution and religious values.

He said that Tehran is drawing up a “citizenship rights charter” to that end.

Promotion of human rights will materialize only through cooperation, dialog and non-selective approaches, said Jaberi Ansari.

Under pressure from the US and its allies, the UN Human Rights Council named the former Maldivian foreign minister as its human rights investigator for Iran in June 2011.

Tehran says the appointment of a UN special rapporteur on Iran’s human rights is a selective, politically-motivated and unacceptable move.