Tehran, YJC. Iran’s human rights chief says extensive efforts to improve the country’s human rights situation have been challenged by politically-motivated meddlesome policies.
Secretary of Iran's High Council for Human Rights Mohammad
Javad Larijani said the Islamic Republic has made significant achievements with
regard to human rights situation in the recent years.
Larijani was making the remarks during an address at the
20th session of the Working Group of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in
Geneva, Switzerland on Friday.
He described the UN resolutions against Iran and the
appointment of a UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the
Islamic Republic as some of the challenges the country faces.
This sort of biased approach is in opposition to the
foundational principles of human rights, the Iranian official added.
Leading Iran’s high-ranking delegation to the UPR meeting, he
cited Tehran’s policies with regard to refugees and asylum seekers as another
evidence of the country’s commitment to its human rights obligations.
The Universal Periodic Review, also known as UPR, is a
mechanism launched in 2006 to investigate the human rights situation of all the
United Nations member states.
During UPR sessions, held every four years, various
countries report their actions that they have carried out to improve the human
rights situation. Each country’s performance will be assessed by other member
states which will provide recommendations that the evaluated country should put
into effect in the next four years.
On June 17, 2011, the UN Human Rights Council, under
pressure from the United States and its allies, named former Maldivian Foreign
Minister Ahmed Shaheed as its human rights investigator on Iran.
Tehran insists that the appointment of a UN Special
Rapporteur on Iran's human rights is a selective, politically-motivated and
unacceptable move.