Official Blasts EU for Joint Statement on Iran’s Human Rights Situation

“The Islamic Republic of Iran considers the European Union’s move to issue a joint statement at the Human Rights Council to be unacceptable,” Khatibzadeh said on Friday.

Such a statement with a selective and baseless stance lacks validity and credibility, the Iranian official said, adding that the EU statement fundamentally runs counter to the approach to promotion of human rights.

Any abuse of the human rights mechanisms and interference in the internal affairs of Iran would be unacceptable, Khatibzadeh noted.

“’It’s not anything new that some European states are silent and indifferent in the face of the gravest violations of human rights by themselves and their allies. They are competing with each other for the sale of billions of dollars in arms to Saudi Arabia and the region’s despots for the massacre of defenceless people of Yemen,” he added.

“They (certain European states) describe the suppression of protestors, killing of black people, massacre of minorities, particularly the Muslims, the harassment and torture of prisoners and putting pressure on the migrants inside the EU borders as the enforcement of law, but at the same time call the judicial measures on the basis of the penal law made by the competent courts of the other countries a violation of human rights,” the Iranian spokesman stated.

“Such double standards show that this group of countries is not sincere in advocating human rights and reveals the political employment of such concept,” he said.

“The development and promotion of human rights at the national, regional and international levels within the framework of religious commitments and in compliance with the Constitution, the domestic law and the international treaties have been always among Iran’s priorities, and it has practically committed itself to observing them,” the spokesman added.

Khatibzadeh finally advised the European governments that seek to propose their intentions in the guise of the European Union to put on their agenda serious efforts to improve human rights among themselves and their regional allies.