Iranian Deputy FM Raps West for Misusing Human Rights
(FNA)- Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Hassan Qashqavi said the West is misusing human rights issues through its selective and double-standard approach towards Iran in a bid to weaken the Islamic Republic.
"Human rights issues have different aspects and not all people in the western countries but their statesmen view it as a political instrument and they use it as a pressure lever to blackmail (others) politically," Qashqavi said in an interview with the parliament's news website on Saturday.
He also criticized the western media for their attempts to spread Iranophobia, and said displaying a gray face of Iran is on their agenda.
Qashqavi expressed regret that the westerners have a selective and double-standard approach towards human rights issues.
In relevant remarks on Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that the West has targeted the Islamic Republic of Iran through human rights issues.
The Iranian foreign minister said that the West, in a paradoxical move, intends to ruin Iran's constructive role in area of Human Rights under the pretext of human rights issues.
He noted that after the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, the country has shown that it is a special country with a global message for humanity, and said, "What bothers the Americans is that we say we have a global message and this is the why different pressures in various areas, including the human rights, are exerted on our country."
Iran says the United State's record of human rights violations disqualifies Washington of being a human rights advocate elsewhere in the world.
In late 2012, the Iranian foreign ministry rapped Washington for its dark human rights record, and urged the UN officials to suspend the United States' membership in the world body's Human Rights Council.
"It is obvious that the US administration with its negative record of human rights and its actions in violation of the criteria and standards of the UN human rights conventions and treaties is not qualified to be a member of the Human Rights Council which is the most important international human rights mechanism," former Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast said as the US had applied for membership in the UN Human Rights Council.
He also announced that Iran along with the developing countries which had played a pivotal role in the formation of the UN Human Rights Council wanted to oppose the US membership in the Council in the elections held during the UN General Assembly meeting on November 12.
The US has been staunchly criticizing human rights conditions in other countries, while it itself has been widely blamed for trampling upon minority rights.
In November, 2010, the Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a report on the violation of human rights by the US inside and outside its borders, and urged Washington to sign the international conventions which prohibit such crimes.
It was stressed in the Foreign Ministry report that the United States, as a self-proclaimed standard bearer of defense for human rights in the world, has despite the international community and the UN demand, and even despite President Barack Obama's promise, still not shut down the Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib horrendous prisons.
It is stressed in the report that the United States has not yet joined the most important convention related to the economic, social and cultural rights that is among the most important human rights documents.
The Children's Rights Committee of the United Nations, too, has announced that the United States has been one of the greatest producers and distributors of the world child pornography products, while it is now one of the only two countries in the world that have not yet joined the International Children's Rights Convention.
On January 27, 2014, Iran’s Basij (Volunteer) Force released a comprehensive report on the violation of human rights by the US inside the country and abroad.
The report was unveiled in a ceremony participated by Commander of Iran's Basij Force Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, Lieutenant Commander of Basji (Volunteer) Force Ahmad Esfandiyari, Parliament's First Vice-Speaker Hassan Aboutorabi Fard, Iranian Judiciary Chief Sadeq Amoli Larijani and a number of Judiciary officials and experts.
The report referred to different cases of violation of human rights by the US, including the executions, arbitrary detentions, torture of inmates, violation of people’s privacy, violation of the rights of the minorities, Muslims and native Americans, racism and US President Barack Obama’s opposition to the freedom of expression.