TEHRAN (Iran News) –Western countries for centuries have claimed they have been defenders of the human rights and human values but they have actually been the violators of the human rights when it comes to what is happening in their own lands.
The West especially its leading countries like the U.S., UK and France have been major violators of the human rights in recent decades and unfortunately other Western counties have copied their lords and have gone the same path that the big Western countries have gone.
Unfortunately the West has a double standard view regarding the human rights issue and it is an ardent defender of human rights issue when it comes to other countries but it ignores what is going in their own countries.
We have not yet forgotten the reaction of Western countries regarding to the riots in countries like Iran, Venezuela and some other independent countries and at the same time they acted indifferently to what has happened in Israel and France that protesters have been confronted with force.
On Saturday Iran’s vice-president of the judiciary for international affairs criticized international mechanisms for failing to take a position regarding the deteriorating human rights situation in Western countries, saying international rights bodies are duty-bound to support and promote the key issue across the world.
In a Saturday letter to Volker Türk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Kazem Gharibabadi said the world suffers from fundamental challenges and dilemmas regarding human rights which are mainly caused by those countries that “claim to be defending human rights and see themselves in the position of making demands from others and being immune from any criticism and responsibility.”
“The responsibility of the international human rights mechanisms in such conditions is fundamental to support and promote human rights, which must be fulfilled by respecting independence, impartiality, professionalism, and non-selectivity,” said Gharibabadi, who also served as the Secretary General of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights.
He warned of adopting “politically-motivated and selective” approaches that does a great disservice and is detrimental to human rights, and erodes public trust in human rights mechanisms.
He drew the commissioner’s attention to situations in several countries, including France, Britain and Germany, over the last six months regarding the “right to freedom of assembly and of association.”
Pointing to massive public demonstrations in France in protest against the government’s policies, the Iranian rights official said, “Instead of listening to the protesters’ demands and trying to improve the situation, the French government resorts to large-scale violence to deal with the gatherings.”
Gharibabadi censured the French government for using anti-riot equipment, assaulting people, and arresting thousands of protesters as only part of the countermeasures.
Referring to Britain’s introduction of amendments to the Public Order Bill to increase police powers to deal with protesters at rallies, he said the “repression bill” leads to a “significant and unprecedented increase in the powers of the police force to impose undue restrictions on peaceful protests and … it criminalizes assemblies under the pretext of deprivation of public comfort and provides a sentence of up to 10 years of imprisonment.”
Gharibabdi pointed to a sit-in protest in Germany. He said over 3,000 German police and security forces arrested hundreds of political opponents under the pretext of plotting to stage a coup d’état.
“In yet another move, the German government seeks to pass a law that will expel its opponents from all government jobs under the pretext of extremism.” The top Iranian rights official said most European countries have been the scene of peaceful protests over the past months which were “suppressed and dispersed with the most severe attacks by law enforcement forces.”
Referring to the recent riots in Iran, Gharibabadi said,” Egged on by incitement and backing of particular states, media outlets and terrorist groups, the recent gatherings in the Islamic Republic of Iran deviated from their peaceful nature and morphed into riots, causing violations of the fundamental rights of citizens.”
The Iranian vice-president also slammed the West and the United States for pursuing a politically-motivated approach and exploiting the Human Rights Council by establishing a so-called mechanism to investigate the riots in the country.
“The same countries that consider themselves supporters of the rioters in Iran are – both in law and in practice – committing the most heinous crimes to systematically violate the right to peaceful assembly.”
These were just few examples for what is going in the Western countries and one can see that human rights issue has turned into a game to be played by the West when Western states need it to use as a tool to exercise pressure on the independent countries.
Many international bodies have been formed to defend human rights in the world but they remain silent and passive when violation of human rights happen in the Western countries and they are just active against those countries which do not bow to the pressure of the West.
If the international bodies continue the current trend of response to the human rights violation, they will turn into a useless body and human rights will lose its meaning and importance. So the international human rights body are better to take fair and equal action regarding human rights violation if they really are defenders of it because as long as these bodies remain indifferent, human rights violation will continue in the West and only other countries will be the target of these bodies.
