Iran Calls on UN Human Rights Council to Avoid Discriminatory Approach

TEHRAN (FNA)- A senior Iranian diplomat called on the UN Human Rights Council to avoid discriminatory approaches towards human rights issues.

Iran's New Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva, Switzerland, Mohsen Naziri Asl made the remarks addressing a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

"The issue of human rights must be pursued in accordance with a constructive, non-aggressive, non-political, non-selective approach based on holding dialogues, observation of justice and equality, keeping its goal-oriented, impartial, and transparent nature," Naziri Asl said.

"We believe that the international community should investigate the human rights situation in different countries without any discrimination, and not differentiate between developed and developing nations," he added.

In November, the Iranian foreign ministry rapped Washington for its dark human rights record, and urged the UN officials to suspend the United States' membership in the world body's Human Rights Council.

"It is obvious that the US administration with its negative record of human rights and its actions in violation of the criteria and standards of the UN human rights conventions and treaties is not qualified to be a member of the Human Rights Council which is the most important international human rights mechanism," Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast said as the US had applied for membership in the UN Human Rights Council.

He also announced that Iran along with the developing countries which have played a pivotal role in the formation of the UN Human Rights Council wants to oppose the US membership in the Council in the elections to be held during the UN General Assembly meeting on November 12.

The US has been staunchly criticizing human rights conditions in other countries, while it itself has been widely blamed for trampling upon minority rights.

In November, 2010, the Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a report on the violation of human rights by the US inside and outside its borders, and urged Washington to sign the international conventions which prohibit such crimes.

It was stressed in the Foreign Ministry report that the United States, as a self-proclaimed standard bearer of defense for human rights in the world, has despite the international community and the UN demand, and even despite President Barack Obama's promise, still not shut down the Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib horrendous prisons.

It is stressed in the report that the United States has not yet joined the most important convention related to the economic, social and cultural rights that is among the most important human rights documents.

The Children's Rights Committee of the United Nations, too, has announced that the United States has been one of the greatest producers and distributors of the world child pornography products, while it is now one of the only two countries in the world that have not yet joined the International Children's Rights Convention.

(2013-06-09/farsnews)