Iran rejects ‘biased’ UN rights report, says it resorts to anti-Iran ‘fake news’

Iran’s permanent representative to the UN office and other international organizations in Geneva has slammed a “biased” report by the world body on the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic, saying it is based on anti-Iran media outlets.

Ali Bahraini made the remarks on Wednesday in an address to the 53rd session of the Human Rights Council, during which UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Nada al-Nashif presented the secretary general’s latest report on Iran.

Covering the period from August 2022 to April 2023, the report alleged that there is “a worsening human rights landscape in Iran coupled with the chronic lack of meaningful and effective avenues for the population to voice grievances or indeed to seek remedies.”

Bahraini rejected the report as “politically motivated, biased and unfair,” arguing that it “did not contribute to the promotion and protection of human rights.” 

He also dismissed the claim about Iran’s “limited” implementation of recommendations of human rights mechanisms, saying such accusations “highlighted the biased and one-sided opinions of the report.”

“Iran was committed to promoting and protecting human rights, and interacted and cooperated with the United Nations human rights mechanisms,” the envoy asserted.

He further criticized the report for turning a blind eye to the illegal sanctions imposed on the Iranian nation.

“The unilateral measures enacted on Iran impacted all areas of the Iranian people’s lives. The imposition of these measures against the Iranian nation was a crime against humanity, which was neglected by the report,” Bahraini said.

The report claimed that last year’s foreign-backed riots in Iran, which broke out after the death of young woman Mahsa Amini, brought to the fore issues such as “discrimination in law and practice against women and girls as well as minorities.”

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The ambassador said the allegation “painted an incorrect picture on the situation of human rights in Iran.”

He also questioned the report’s sources, saying, it “should not utilize fake news published by terrorist organizations.”

“Out of more than 130 sources in the report’s footnotes, less than 30 were cited from inside sources; more were from anti-Iranian outlets. Unfortunately, the claims made by the report regarding the recent riots in the country contained inappropriate terms, often used by media outlets which reported against Iran,” he added.

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