Iranˈs Representative Office In Geneva Reacts To UN Report On HR Situation

Tehran, March 19, IRNA – Iranˈs representative office in the UN Bureau in Geneva reacted to the report of the UN special rapporteur on human rights situation Ahmed Shaheed and called it unconstructive move which would challenge the UN legitimacy. According to the report of Foreign Ministry Media Department, Iranˈs representative office in its reaction, which was read by Iranˈs ambassador and permanent representative in the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva Mohsen Naziri, called report of the special rapporteur as ˈincorrect, intentional and unconstructiveˈ. It added that the issue will challenge credit and legitimacy of the UN system, which had been created with an aim to guarantee respect for the world human rights values, as a common heritage of humanity and to enrich dialogue between cultures and different civilizations. He continued that the report only referred to several positive steps taken by Islamic Republic of Iran and its main part is a collection of baseless claims. The Iranˈs representative office reply said that the report analysis on Iranˈs approaches following recent presidential election is so superficial and also it does not pay enough attention to noticeable achievements in different fields, including the reality that women in Iran have higher education and participate in all arenas of social life in the society and also it does not pay attention to Iranˈs legal system and its Islamic culture and use western culture as an international standard for the whole world. It continued that the rapporteur has presented some incorrect judgments concerning law sovereignty in Iran, which indicated his lack of appropriate knowledge about process of law ratification and a comprehensive understanding on function and structure of Iranˈs Judicial body. Meanwhile, visiting some European countries to collect information about human rights situation in Iran is not an appropriate method to compile a report. Concerning capital punishment, the Iranˈs reply said that execution is only related to the most serious crimes, such as murder, terrorist crimes, armed drug smuggling, terror and kidnapping. It continued that undoubtedly, Iran believes in constructive cooperation with all international organizations and constantly reported to observer committees of international human rights convention and also has replied all special rapporteur corresponding. In spite of Iranˈs opposition against resolution of human rights council, we declared our readiness to present necessary information to human rights high commissioner office, but the rapporteur paid just a little attention to Iranˈs view points, so the report is far from minimum of fairness and neutrality standards./end