MP Blasts UN Human Rights Report on Iran
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - A senior Iranian lawmaker slammed the United Nations special rapporteur’s latest report on the status of human rights in Iran, describing the biased report as a political leverage to mount pressures on the Islamic Republic.
In his latest report to the UN Human Rights Council, the global body’s special rapporteur for human rights in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, repeated his baseless accusations against the Islamic Republic regarding the status of human rights.
Shaheed has also accused Iranian President Hassan Rouhani of failing to improve human rights in the country.
In reply, Mohammad Hassan Asafari, a member of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, drew a link between Shaheed’s latest report and Washington’s hostile policies towards Tehran.
“He (Shaheed) seeks to pursue a scenario with an eye to the task that the Americans have assigned him via the United Nations,” Asafari told the Tasnim News Agency on Saturday.
Describing Shaheed’s report as a ploy masterminded by the western organization, the lawmaker stressed that the UN, the EU and the US want to exert more pressure on the Islamic Republic, which is a prelude to future intensified threats and sanctions against the Iranian nation.
On June 17, 2011, the UN Human Rights Council, under pressure from the US and its allies, named former Maldivian foreign minister, Ahmed Shaheed, as human rights rapporteur on Iran.
Tehran insists that the appointment of a UN special rapporteur on Iran's human rights situation is a selective, politically-motivated and unacceptable move.
