HCHR urges gov'ts to stop exempting terrorists from punishment

Tehran, IRNA – The office of the vice-president of the Iranian Judiciary for International Affairs has issued a statement on the occasion of Counter-Terrorism Day in Iran, calling on all governments to stop exempting terrorists throughout the globe. Kazem Gharibabadi is the Vice-President of the Judiciary for International Affairs and the Secretary-General of the High Council for Human Rights of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The office warned that following more than seven decades of ratification of the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the world public are being affected by extremism, hatred, and violence. If once world wars were the main reason behind deaths of millions of human beings throughout the world, nowadays it has been replaced by terrorism, which causes deaths of thousands of innocent people, the statement added. The malicious phenomenon of terrorism as the instrumental use of the phenomenon by certain states has caused deaths of innocent people in different places around the world every day, it warned, noting that terrorism has never been in a unified framework, but it has showcased new appearances for instance by the use of drones in terrorism, bioterrorism, and cyber-terrorism. The classification of terrorism into good and bad sorts is a kind of misuse of the phenomenon to distort rival’s mindsets, whitewash terrorism, and grant exemption to terrorists, while their crimes will never be subject to expiration based on international criminal law, the statement read. The Islamic Republic of Iran is considered the main victim of terrorism in the world, it mentioned, arguing that the assassination of more than 17k innocent people within four decades, as well as the assassination of Iranian scientists and important figures, in particular Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, are among the blatant instances of terrorism engineering against Iran. Nowadays, Western countries especially the US have turned into a safe-haven hideout for terrorist groups such as the MEK and these governments provide the terrorists with political, security, information, technical, financial, and media support, the statement added. The High Council for Human Rights of the Islamic Republic of Iran categorically condemns all sorts of terrorism and fervently opposes policies of certain Western countries like the US, who attempt to classify terrorism into good and bad, it underlined, adding that the council knows the Counter-Terrorism Day as the day of scrutinizing and holding accountable governments backing terrorism. The council urges all world governments to stop exempting and leaving unpunished terrorists throughout the globe, and bring them to justice, it read. Pointing to the UN Charter, it added that the Islamic Republic of Iran expresses readiness to coordinate with its neighboring states at a geographical level and that it is determined to conduct an inclusive and purposeful fight against the malicious phenomenon in West Asia. August 30 has been designated as Counter-Terrorism Day because it coincides with the assassination of the then Iranian president, prime minister, and their entourage in Tehran in 1981. The bombing of the prime minister’s office was carried out by anti-Iran elements, who had connections with certain Western governments in a bid to target democratic pillars of the new-born establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Follow us on Twitter @IrnaEnglish