Iran slams double-standards in human rights
TEHRAN– Iran’s top human rights official censures the hypocritical approach pursued by the self-styled advocates of human rights in the world.
Addressing the 31st UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday, Mohammad Javad Larijani, the secretary general of Iranian High Council for Human Rights, said self-proclaimed flag bearers of human rights in the world are “close allies” with regimes that deprive their people of the right to decide their future, Press TV reported.
He said the so-called advocates of human rights are “totally ignoring the responsibility which they bear” under “basic international human rights documents.”
Larijani highlighted the double-standard policies adopted by regimes that deprive their citizens of the “very basic and minimal right to participate in shaping their destiny” while claiming “adherence to human rights.”
Larijani touched on Iran’s recently held twinned elections for the parliament and the Assembly of Experts with more than 60-percent voter turnout.
He said the two elections serve as an example for other countries in the world to follow.
“Now a new model for public sphere is emerging: representative democracy based on Islamic rationality,” said Larijani, adding that Iran’s political establishment is a “democratic polity based on Islamic rationality rather than secular-liberal rationality.”
He said that Iran’s elections “offer the people of the Islamic world a new option: to reform their society, they are not obliged to choose between secular-liberal democracies or sink into extremism.”
Ballots, not bullets can solve Syria crisis
Larijani reaffirmed Iran’s longtime position that ongoing crisis in Syria must be resolved through a free election and not militarily.
“Iran has always insisted that there is no military solution to the crisis in Syria. Only ballots – not bullets – can ultimately usher in a new era in Syria,” said Iran’s human rights chief.
He stressed that Iran has constantly “advocated an immediate ceasefire and an end to the bloodshed” and “dialogue between the Syrian government and the “opposition” groups who reject terrorism.”
H.M