TEHRAN - On Wednesday, Iran marked "American Human Rights Disclosure Day" with a conference at the University of Tehran, focusing on the hypocrisy of Western human rights claims. 

The day commemorates the downing of an Iranian passenger plane by the U.S. over the Persian Gulf on July 3, 1988, which killed the 290 people on board. 

High-ranking Iranian officials, researchers, and families of victims of the Gaza war attended the 8th American Human Rights Conference to discuss and expose the West's use of human rights as a political tool.

"The U.S. calls itself the defender of human rights, but human rights are politically exploited by Western authorities," said Askar Jalalian, Deputy Minister of Human Rights and International Affairs at the Ministry of Justice. "Human rights is merely a tool in the hands of Washington to secure its own interests."

Jalalian highlighted the West's role in conflicts around the world, accusing them of exacerbating suffering rather than promoting peace. "The right to peace in the world, such as Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and even Ukraine, has been messed up in a way that it will not be restored for years," he said.

He further criticized the U.S. for its support of Israel, noting that the U.S. is the real perpetrator of human rights abuses in Gaza. "The U.S. supports the Zionist regime and claims that this regime legitimately defends itself. This is despite the fact that this regime very evidently doesn’t respect humanitarian laws whatsoever," he said. "Women and children are the silent victims of the American war in Gaza, and Gaza is an exhibition of all kinds of human rights violations."

Hamid Nouri, an Iranian citizen who was illegally detained in Sweden for five years, provided a personal account of what he considers to be the West's disregard for human rights. "In 2019, I entered Sweden legally as a normal citizen, but I was arrested in an ugly and disgusting way and transferred to prison and solitary confinement," he said. "It is nothing more than a lie to say that there is democracy and human rights in Western countries like Sweden. Human rights are an ugly claim made by Western countries. An example of Western human rights is that my lawyers were appointed by the Swedish prosecutor's office."

The conference concluded with a stark warning about the West's approach to human rights. "By claiming human rights and exploiting them, the West is destroying humanity itself," said one participant.