Iran Slams UN Human Rights Resolution Proposed by Canada

By Staff, Agencies

Iran’s Foreign Ministry dismissed as unacceptable a draft resolution on human rights put forward by the Canadian government at the United Nations, decrying Ottawa for its instrumental and political use of international mechanisms.

In a statement on Wednesday, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh bemoaned the fact that some countries use human rights as a tool to achieve their goals.

“It is regrettable that some countries, including Canada, use human rights and its international mechanisms as a tool to advance their objectives and political ambitions,” he said.

“Such unconstructive actions not only will not help promote the status of human rights and respect for human rights at the international level, but will only trigger moves to form negative clichés against, and attach political stigmas to independent countries,” the Foreign Ministry’s website quoted him as saying.

“We condemn and regard as lacking any legal grounds and effect the move by the Canadian government and other sympathizers of the resolution, which is a clear example of abusing lofty human rights concepts and values in order to achieve short-sighted political objectives,” the spokesman added.

Khatibzadeh noted that 114 out of 193 UN member states have either voted ‘no’ or abstained from voting to show their discontent with the hypocritical approach adopted by the supporters of the resolution.

He urged the Canadian government to stop backing the US administration’s economic terrorism against the Iranian nation instead of showing hypocritical sympathy for Iranian people with regards to human rights.

He also urged Canada to stop hosting economic offenders and looters of Iranian people’s wealth, who have found Canada a safe haven for the transfer and investment of the assets they have looted.

“The Canadian-proposed resolution, which Ottawa has been presenting for several years now in line with its hostile policies against the Islamic Republic of Iran, was adopted today with the votes of less than half the UN member states, including the "Israeli" regime, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Albania, Britain and Canada,” he said.

“One-hundred fourteen countries voted against this resolution or abstained, or did not take part in the voting session.”

He said it is a shame that Canada has brought together “a bunch of governments with notorious records in the domain of human rights,” including the American, "Israeli" and Bahraini regimes, to teach human rights to Iranian people.

Khatibzadeh advised the Canadian officials to correct their anti-human rights performance both inside and outside that country and not only stop this regime’s systematic policy of committing genocide against Canadian aborigines, but also answer for their complicity in anti-human crimes committed by the Saudi and "Israeli" regimes against Yemeni and Palestinian people.