TEHRAN — Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh on Friday dismissed the Human Rights Council resolution on the human rights situation in Iran as totally unacceptable and illegal.

Khatibzadeh said the drafting of the resolution by the UK and other Western governments and repetition of unfounded claims are based on wrong and malicious information.

Referring to efforts by Western governments to continue their Iranophobia project and defamation against the Islamic Republic, Khatibzadeh said these countries who have a long track record of clear human rights violations through arms sales to despotic and occupying regimes, have turned the issue of human rights into a tool to satisfy their political greed and achieve their political goals. 

The spokesman noted that such immoral and unjustified moves not only will fail to help improve the human rights situation and respect for them at the global level, it also amplifies negative stereotyping and political defamation against nations and have caused serious damage to the true meaning of human rights.

Khatibzadeh added that Iran strongly condemns the move by the British government and other drafters of the resolution, which is a blatant example of abusing the lofty concepts and values of human rights for the purpose of bigoted political goals and considers it as lacking any legal value and effect.

On the resolution that extends the mission of the UN special rapporteur in Iran, Khatibzadeh noted that the recent reports show the rapporteur acts according to the British, Zionist and U.S. drafters of the resolution and has turned the UN’s human rights mechanisms into a tool to achieve the heinous and illegal goals of the foregoing regimes.

The Foreign Ministry spokesman underlined that what has happened in the UNHRC resolutions in recent years have practically been unilateral defamation against Iran by the drafters of the motions. 

Khatibzadeh further said those governments who themselves violate the rights of other nations have lost the moral ground to judge the human rights situation in any country and that they must be held accountable for their crimes and gross violations of human rights.

He added that as Iran has frequently declared, naming a special human rights rapporteur for a country like Iran is basically unjustified and unconstructive. 

The spokesman noted that Iran is a country that has stuck to its commitments regarding the rights of its citizens and the international community despite oppressive pressures from the U.S. economic terrorism.

The diplomat also stressed that Iran is a religious democracy that has taken steps toward promoting and improving human rights at national, regional and international levels within the confines of its religious obligations and its constitution and ordinary laws.

According to Khatibzadeh, Iran considers itself duty-bound in practice to observe human rights. 

The spokesman reiterated that those who drafted the resolution must first condemn the U.S. actions in line with its economic terrorism and its move to intensify unilateral, oppressive sanctions and their destructive impact on the access of Iranians to basic needs such as medical equipment and items during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman concluded his statement by saying that such efforts to change the place of defendant and the plaintiff will yield no results for those who drafted the anti-Iran resolution.