Meddlesome policies pose challenge to Iran rights efforts

Iran’s extensive efforts to improve the country’s human rights situation have faced serious challenges, including politically-motivated meddlesome policies, says an Iranian official.

The Islamic Republic has made significant achievements with regard to human rights situation in the recent years, said Secretary of Iran's High Council for Human Rights Mohammad Javad Larijani during an address at the 20th session of the Working Group of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in Geneva, Switzerland on Friday.

However, Larijani described the UN resolutions against Iran and the appointment of a UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic as some of the challenges the country faces.

Such a biased approach is in direct contradiction to the foundational principles of human rights, the Iranian official added.

Larijani, who headed Iran’s high-ranking delegation to the UPR meeting, also cited Tehran’s policies with regard to refugees and asylum seekers as another evidence of the country’s commitment to its human rights obligations.

The Universal Periodic Review, also known as UPR, is a mechanism launched in 2006 to investigate the human rights situation of all the United Nations member states.

During UPR sessions, which are held every four years, different countries present reports of their actions to improve the human rights situation. Each country’s performance will be assessed by other member states which will provide recommendations that the evaluated country should put into effect in the next four years.

On June 17, 2011, the UN Human Rights Council, under pressure from the United States and its allies, named former Maldivian Foreign Minister Ahmed Shaheed as its human rights investigator on Iran.

Tehran insists that the appointment of a UN Special Rapporteur on Iran's human rights is a selective, politically-motivated and unacceptable move.