Ministry: U.S. Has Reduced Rights Into a ‘Plaything’

Date: 15 May 2022 - 22:08

News ID: ۱۰۲۶۰۷

TEHRAN -- Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman on Sunday criticized the United States for using human rights as a tool to achieve its goals, saying the “sublime concept” has been reduced to a “plaything” by Washington.

Saeed Khatibzadeh made the remarks in an address to a gathering of Iranian nongovernmental organizations enjoying consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

The Iranian diplomat noted that the issue of human rights is one of the most important victims of international relations at the current juncture.

“Due to the approach adopted by the centers of power in the world, the issue of human rights has been turned into a political tool to advance those centers’ goals,” he said.

Khatibzadeh further took the United States to task for its skewed approach to human rights, saying, “The United States uses human rights as a tool in its foreign policy toolbox in order to achieve its goals. Unfortunately, this approach has degraded the sublime concept of human rights to a plaything.”

Iran has time and again warned of the exploitation of human rights by the US and its Western allies as a tool to target independent countries.

In similar remarks back in March, the secretary of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights slammed the U.S. and the Western European countries for politicizing human rights and exploiting it as a pressure tool against non-aligned countries.

“The Western European countries and the United States have this selective approach, unfortunately,” Kazem Gharibabadi said in an interview with Press TV.

“So, the countries that are not allied to these states are under political pressure in international human rights mechanisms and structures because they are going to abuse human rights as a political tool to achieve their own foreign policy goals,” he added.

The U.S. has a long and complicated

history of human rights abuses both at home and abroad, calling into question its unilateral sanctions on other countries for alleged human rights abuses.
A report revealed in late December that the number of Americans killed in encounters with U.S. police has not dropped despite massive protests across the country following the killing of African-American men, George Floyd and Daunte Wright, by white police officers last year.