UN-mandated mission on rights in Iran lacks credibility: Rights chief

The Secretary General of Iran's High Council for Human Rights has slammed the report issued by a fact-finding mission mandated by the United Nations on the situation of human rights in Iran, saying the report lacks legal and judicial credibility.

Kazem Gharibabadi said in a Monday address to the Human Rights Council in Geneva that the Islamic Republic of Iran rejects the report by the “so-called Fact-Finding Mission,” which has criticized the country for its handling of the violent protests that erupted in late 2022 following the death of a young woman in police custody.

He criticized Germany for pushing for the creation of the Mission in November 2022 and said Berlin has still blood on its hands for its supply of chemical weapons to the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein which led to the death of more than 13,000 people during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.

The official named the United States, Germany, Britain, France and Canada as countries who are pretending to defend the rights of Iranian children and women by supporting the Mission while they have violated the rights of tens of millions of Iranians by introducing unilateral sanctions on Iran.

Gharibabadi said that those same countries have also kept silent on the death of more than 31,000 innocent people as well as the destruction of hundreds of thousands of buildings during more than five months of Israeli aggression in Gaza.

He said the Mission assigned to investigate the rights situation in Iran "lacked the minimum level of independence and impartiality" because of its clear connections to certain Western countries.

“It is a shame that this mission has credited itself as fact-finding but it has turned a blind eye to the violation of the rights of 79 of people defending security and the law enforcement forces who lost their lives and more than 7,000 law enforcement forces who were injured as a result of the widespread violence (committed) by rioters and insurrectionists,” said Gharibabadi.

Iran has repeatedly stated that its opponents capitalized on the death of the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody on September 16, 2022 to stage violent riots in the country.

Several people were executed following the riots after they were convicted of killing security forces or ordinary people while a majority of those arrested during the riots were released under a general amnesty granted by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei in early 2023.

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