TEHRAN - Iran’s permanent mission at the United Nations Zahra Ershadi says the latest report on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic by the UN special rapporteur has used information provided by terrorist groups as its source.
Ershadi, Iran’s deputy ambassador to the UN, made the remarks in response to a new report prepared by the so-called UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, noting that such reports only aim to use human rights as an instrument against other countries.
Iran’s envoy expressed regret that the special rapporteur has used as his source reports given to him by terrorist groups that are still being backed by their sponsors and erroneously introduced as human rights defenders.
Iran’s deputy envoy then condemned as reprehensible the UN special rapporteur’s glorification of those terrorists whose hands are covered by the blood of innocent Iranians.
She noted that other weaknesses in the special rapporteur’s report include taking advantage of ambiguous and unofficial sources that are sworn enemies of the Islamic Republic and taking a selective approach to Iran’s human rights achievements.
Iran’s deputy envoy, however, emphasized that despite such reports, Tehran will continue its constructive cooperation with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights as well as UN human rights mechanisms.
She said the Islamic Republic believes that dialogue based on mutual respect is the sole tool to guarantee and support human rights at international level, noting that the goal of such reports is to use human rights as an instrument against other countries.
Iran’s deputy envoy said abuse of human rights mechanisms to harass countries that work toward promotion of human rights will endanger international solidarity among countries and damage lofty goals of human rights.
She added that appointment of a special rapporteur for Iran, which was spearheaded by the West, especially Canada, was done on the basis of political motivations and against the interests of the Iranian nation.
Iran has on numerous occasions called on the UN not to use unofficial and unsubstantiated sources to compile its human rights reports, urging the world body to refrain from resorting to selective approaches that would undermine its credibility.
Back in June, Iran’s permanent representative to the United Nations office in Geneva said that a new report by the world body on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic is the product of a political mandate devised by certain Western states to mount pressure on the country.

‘Human Rights Used as
Political Instrument’

The secretary-general of Iran’s Human Rights Office Kazem Gharibabadi also laments misapplication of the issue of human rights as a “commodity and an instrument” for subjecting independent and developing countries like Iran to pressure.
“At a time when the world is suffering from the attitudes and
policies of such Western countries like the United States, issuance of such a report against the Islamic Republic, which, itself, is a victim of these countries’ actions is a completely political and diversionary measure,” Gharibabadi said.
The “ill-intentioned” report, the official lamented, had intentionally ignored various instances of extensive progress in the area of human rights in Iran.
The so-called UN official had also used “mendacious claims” made by foreign-based anti-Iran terrorist groups, which themselves are guilty of violating human rights, to devise the report’s central planks, he added.