By:Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer

 

At long last we are seeing a sort of impartial assessment by a top official of the United Nations regarding Washington’s economic terrorism against the Islamic Republic and the people of Iran. 

In her press conference in Tehran yesterday, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Negative Impact of Unilateral Coercive Measures on the Enjoyment of Human Rights, called for the immediate release of Iran’s estimated 120 billion dollars illegally held up in foreign banks under US pressure.

Alena Douhan said: “Applying extraterritorial sanctions on Iranian companies or companies working with Iran is illegal under international law. I urge states to unfreeze the assets of the Central Bank of Iran in accordance with customary norms of international law.”

She slammed the US for its brutal sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, asserting that decades of sanctions have wholly affected Iranian people’s lives and have particularly hit the low-income section of the society. 

This is the first time a senior UN official has taken the US to task for its blind hostility against the Iranian people and explicitly called on Washington to abandon its hard-nosed policy of maximum pressure against Iran and other countries.

The roguish regime in Washington, however, is not expected to show respect for international law or admit its history of crimes against world people.

Anyway, such a fair and positive report on the illegality of US sanctions and their negative consequences in Iran will definitely make people around the world to become aware of realities long hidden from public view because of American propaganda and the pressures over the World Body.    

The former professor of International Law at the University of Belarus and the Director of the Peace Research Center, who arrived in Tehran earlier this month has met several civil society members, representatives of financial centers, and the diplomatic community during her 11-day visit.

Douhan, who said she will address her concerns about the illegal US sanctions in her final report to the UN headquarters in New York, also criticized the US decision to abandon the nuclear deal with Iran, pointing out that the 2015 Geneva Accord was endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2231. 

It is now two years since she took up this post at the UN and has a positive record of presenting facts, as is evident by her earlier reports on the negative impact of Washington’s extraterritorial policies, or more properly economic terrorism against such countries as Syria and Venezeula.

It is also worth noting that Douhan was in Qatar for twelve days in November 2020 to assess the impact of sanctions imposed by the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Egypt. Her preliminary statement critical of the sanctions made Riyadh and Abu Dhabi use their wealth and pressures to prevent her from addressing the 48th session of the UN Human Rights Council in September 2021.