Iran denounces U.S. dumbness over university crackdowns

April 30, 2024 - 22:16

TEHRAN- The UN human rights office has come under fire from Iran’s top human rights official for fabricating accusations against Iran while ignoring the U.S. government’s brutal assault on anti-war academics and students.

The secretary of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights, Kazem Gharibabadi, said on Monday that while the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) made statements about alleged rights violations in Iran during the same period, it ignores what is happening on U.S. university campuses.

“The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has taken no notice of what is happening in the U.S. but at the same time issued three statements accusing Iran of human rights violations, which is proof of contradictions and double standards in the UN body’s mechanisms,” Gharibabadi added. 

The U.S. police have attacked college campuses across the country, from Texas to Illinois, from California to New York, pulling and hauling people astonishingly and smashing them ruthlessly. 

In the course of demonstrations against Israel’s genocide military operation in Gaza, which has resulted in the deaths of around 34,500 Palestinians and left over a million homeless and hungry, they have even detained academics, including Caroline Fohlin of Emory University in Georgia.

The Washington Post reported on Monday that more than 900 individuals had been detained on U.S. universities thus far, emphasizing that the protests were “peaceful and nonviolent until law enforcement showed up.”

About fifty students were taken into custody by riot police on Monday at the University of Texas pro-Gaza protest camp after they deployed pepper spray. 

State police were summoned to a university for the second occasion in less than a week following the altercation between students and police on Monday.

Students in the U.S. have been opposing Israel’s homicidal activities in the narrow Strip since the Israeli attack on Gaza began on October 7. However, a fresh wave of protests has swept the nation, with demonstrators erecting encampments on college campuses.

The major demands made by the students are that their colleges reveal their financial holdings and sever connections with companies that support Israel or make money from its conflict with the Palestinian people.

Earlier this month, Columbia University in New York saw protests spread to other prestigious American institutions.

Similar protests have spread around the U.S. despite severe crackdowns that included mass suspensions, evictions from university housing, and arrests.

Video footage of students, faculty members, and journalists being forcibly held by the police on campuses has surfaced.

In a letter on Saturday to Volker Turk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Gharibabadi blasted international institutions for failing to take a stand against the degradation of human rights conditions in Western nations.

“The world suffers from fundamental challenges and dilemmas regarding human rights, mainly caused by the actions of countries that claim to be defending human rights and see themselves in the position of making demands of others and being immune from any criticism and responsibility,” Gharibabadi added. 

“In these circumstances, it is crucial for the international human rights institutions to uphold independence, impartiality, professionalism, and non-selectivity in order to protect and advance human rights. Adopting politically-motivated and selective approaches is harmful to human rights, does a terrible injustice to them, and undermines public confidence in human rights procedures,” continued Gharibabadi who is also deputy Judiciary chief for foreign affairs.

He alerted the commissioner to “certain circumstances during the last six months in numerous nations involving the right to freedom of assembly and of association,” noting that “France often observes enormous public protests against the government’s policies.”

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