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Iran Spokesman Claims UN Human Rights Approach Is One-Sided

Saeed Khatibzadeh, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, said Wednesday [March 24] that the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution adopted on Tuesday extending the mandate of its Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran lacked "legitimacy and international consensus."

In a statement published on the foreign ministry portal, Khatibzadeh charged that the UNHRC resolutions over the past ten years were "one-sided accusations." He said that the Special Rapporteur's reports had ignored the deaths of Iranians due to the US sanctions, which make importing medicine and medical equipment difficult. The spokesman called for holding to account "countries that violate the rights of other nations."

However, Iran has refused to allow UN or any international human rights monitors to visit the country to make an assessment of conditions even when there were no US sanctions that could impact its imports of medicine.

The UNHRC adopted the resolution on Tuesday, by 21-12 votes with 14 abstentions, extending the mandate of Javaid Rehman, who was appointed on July 6, 2018 as the third Special Rapporteur for Iran since the re-establishment of the Special Rapporteur's mandate in 2011 after an interval of nine years. Rehman will present a report to the 76th session of the General Assembly in September and to the 49th session of the UNHRC in March 2022.

Iran became in the 1980s one of the few countries ever investigated by a UN country rapporteur. In 1984 the UNHCR appointed Venezuelan Andrés Aguilar as the first Special Representative to Iran, but he resigned in March 1986 due to Iran's refusal to cooperate.

Reynaldo Galindo Pohl El Salvador, who took over, was allowed to visit Iran three times between 1990 and 1992 but resigned in 1995 when Iran barred him from going back. He was succeeded by Maurice Copithorne, a Canadian lawyer, who served as Special Rapporteur until 2002. Like other two Rapporteurs before him since 2011, Rehman has not been allowed to visit Iran.

Khatibzadeh also criticized the outgoing UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial or arbitrary executions Agnes Callamard over comments made last month on Iran’s shooting down of a Ukrainian airliner in January 2020. He said she had gone beyond her remit and based her report on information that was "distorted, tainted with numerous mistakes, biased and irrelevant."

On December 24 in a 45-page official letter to Iran, Callamard said Iran had committed multiple human rights violations in shooting down Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 and that inconsistencies in official explanations seemed "designed to create a maximum of confusion and a minimum of clarity…contrived to mislead and bewilder."

The UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Commission have over the years condemned Iran over human rights abuses including harsh penalties for crimes, punishment of victimless crimes such as fornication and homosexuality, and the execution of offenders under 18 years of age.

A British-Iranian journalist, political analyst and former correspondent of The National and journalist at Iran International
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