Iran Warns About UNHR Council Political Approach

New York, Oct 27, IRNA – Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations, in a statement released here on Friday warned about discrediting UN Human Rights Council by alleged politically motivated reports on Iran. The statement is Tehran's response to the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran Ahmed Shaheed's alleged report on violation of human rights by Iran, handed out among the UN General Assembly delegations this week. 'The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran Ahmed Shaheed's alleged report on human rights situation in IR of Iran is unrealistic and politically motivated and will discredit this council.' The statement added that some hostile European countries, as well as the US, were behind the appointment of the special rapporteur on human rights in Iran. 'Although Iran has answered Shaheed's claims in a 75-page report, but the special rapporteur did not include Tehran's answers in its latest reports; Shaheed Report allegedly claims that Yahoo and Gmail services in Iran are restricted but this is completely wrong; since Iran is under large amount of cyber attacks, it is forced to make some limitations over Internet and in the cyber world and this is for security reasons and defending the country against the terrorist's cyber attacks.' 'Establishment of a cyber council for securing the domestic Internet relates to the security and sovereignty of states rather than an issue dealing with promotion and protection of human rights,' the Iranian statement said. 'As a country frequently targeted by highly sophisticated vicious cyber attacks, often orchestrated by certain States, Iran has every right and reason to strengthen its cyber space security,' the Iranian response said. 'Contrary to the report (and its) assessments based on overly misleading information, this has nothing to do with the freedom of expression at all.' Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations has called Ahmad Shaheed's alleged report on discrimination between different racial groups in Iran as 'provocative', noting that all Iranian sectarian groups have been living 'side by side with each other, historically in peace.' 'Iran has always declared his preparedness to have constructive cooperation with the UN Human Rights Council and has done its best to help this council on human rights issues but Shaheed's report has not included them.' The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran Ahmed Shaheed released his third report on Thursday, October 11th. The report is solely based on claims of 221 people that were questioned from November 2011 to July 2012. Based on those claims Shaheed has accused Iran of human rights violations. Shaheed presented the report at the Third Committee of the General Assembly on October 24, 2012. While Iranian officials have strongly rejected the appointment of UN special rapporteur on human rights on Iran and called it an unacceptable political action by a number of member-states of UN Human Rights Council against the Islamic Republic of Iran; the question here is how Ahmad Shaheed had completed his report considering that he has not been to the country in the past and not allowed to visit it. Iran has not had a special rapporteur on human rights since 2002, but under the pressure of US and its allies in the UN Human Rights Council, a resolution to appoint a special rapporteur was adopted at the 16th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on March 24, 2011. Under circumstances that the special rapporteur is thirsty to hear about the violation of human rights in Iran, the Iranian opposition groups in exile bombarded Shaheed with false information on human rights issues in Iran. On 2011, June 17, the UN Council on Human Rights appointed former Maldivian Foreign Minister Ahmed Shaheed to the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights to Iran./end