TEHRAN (Iran News) – Iran’s Deputy Head of Judiciary for International Affairs says the UN adopts an anti-Iranian resolution submitted by Canada. At the same time, more than 400,000 Iranians have been barred from consular services by Ottawa due to political issues.
Attending a press conference on Thursday, Kazem Gharibabadi referred to recent resolution the UN issued against Iran and said that the U.S. has acknowledged that it has imposed the most unprecedented sanctions against the Iranians, but the UN resolution shows no trace of the condemnation of the very unilateral and illegal sanctions:
“Are human rights just concerned with the rights of a few prisoners, who are protected by Western countries, for crimes against their own people or their own country? Aren’t the rights of millions of Iranians the very human rights, being violated as a result of unilateral sanctions, lack of medicine, medical equipment and other things?”
Gharibabadi continued: “In the region, there are some countries that know nothing about democracy and elections, but they are fully cooperating with these ostensibly Western human rights advocates and are given impunity against any criticism, resolution or reporting mechanism.”
He said that because of the political approaches to human rights and exclusivism in the Human Rights Council and other international human rights mechanisms, it is not allowed to file a case or report or issue a human rights resolution against the very regional countries.
Gharibabadi continued: “We believe that even if we do not have international obligations, we are obliged to protect the rights of the people because of the country’s regulations and religious and Islamic requirements.”
Stating that the principles of the recent resolution were far from the existing facts, he said that the resolution criticizes the volume of executions in Iran, it should be noted that the issue of banning the death penalty was a Western phenomenon:
“If the death penalty is abolished in Western law, should it be extended to all countries and become a universal standard? At least 55 countries still retain the death penalty in their laws. The fact that Western countries are pursuing the universality of their standards is not human rights.”
Statistics published by Westerners through their press and human rights NGOs also indicated that the death penalty in Iran had been significantly reduced, but the fact was not highlighted.
The top Iranian Human Rights official referred to the medicines embargo on children with EB and asked:
“EB children in Iran, who have difficulty accessing the medicines needed and lose their lives due to lack of access to medicine, do have any rights? Why are there no statements issued in support of these children?! For one thing, they launch wide-ranging international propaganda against Iran, but they remain silent to kill thousands of children, both in Iran and in other countries.”
Gharibabadi referred to the false claim of the recent resolution on the torture of detainees in Iran and stated the prohibition of torture is constitutional in Iran.
“There is a convention called the Convention against Torture to which we are not a party, but our laws are much more sublime in this regard than the convention, and there are few countries that have provided the prohibition of torture in their constitution.”
He stressed Iran always demanded everyone who claims to be tortured should refer to the relevant judicial authorities and the human rights headquarters so that they would follow up the issue seriously, but the so-called UN special rapporteur has not yet provided Iran with any evidence to substantiate his claims about torturing prisoners in the country.
He said that the new resolution is not based on facts but on purely politicizations, adding that Iran would continue its activities to promote human rights and would not be influenced by other countries’ political actions and mechanisms.
“We will boast these political and dual-standards approaches to human rights advocates and recall to them that human rights are not a political issue in the service of their dual standards that they want to use as a tool against some countries, and in some cases, other countries are forced to remain silent to the violation of the rights of their people,” the Deputy for International Affairs of Iran’s Judiciary, Kazem Gharibabadi concluded.
