UNHRC unwilling to find Human Rights graveyard

Tehran, Oct 29, IRNA - 'Kayhan International' on Wednesday rejected, what it called another 'impartial' claim by the UNHRC rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran. Ahmed Shaheed the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) rapporteur in another new report has depicted a 'grim” face of the human rights situation in Iran: This time about capital punishment. Iran’s representative at the UNHRC, Mohsen Naziri-Asl, the claim, arguing, that 'Capital punishment in Iran is restricted to the most serious crimes such as murder, terrorism, serious drug related crimes such as armed smuggling of narcotics, assassination and kidnapping,” underscored the English-language paper in its Viewpoint column. But apparently his argument has fallen to deaf ears, because Ahmed Shaheed released his 6th report anyhow - which is admirable, if he could also display similar passion/commitment toward others, such as the United States, which is the graveyard of human rights, highlighted the daily. How come no UNHRC rapporteur has ever released a report on human rights situation in the US, particularly after the recent racial unrest in the city of Fergusson? it questioned. For the international community and many Americans, the recent events in Ferguson raised disturbing questions since Darren Wilson, a white police officer, shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old black man. Whereas a clear majority of African-Americans considered the conduct of the police outrageous and typical, most white Americans were far more critical of the disorder that followed Brown’s death. There is another divide over human rights and race that gets far less attention (that is to say, virtually none) in the UNHRC reports: Between Americans and non-Americans. Americans tend to think about racial matters in terms of civil rights, whereas around the world they are commonly looked at in terms of human rights – where the term 'race” is avoided. When it comes to the treatment of racial or ethnic groups in other countries, the UNHRC rapporteurs and American leaders/policymakers routinely employ the language of human rights. Not so for comparable grievances in the United States! Clearly, the killings of unarmed African-Americans, the militarization and aggressiveness of overwhelmingly white police in mostly black communities, and the feeble, handwringing responses of officials have never been enough to force the UNHRC and its rapporteurs to start thinking of ways to tie the plight of African-Americans to the universal claim for human rights, wrote the paper.. This while a heightened global interest in racial violence in the United States, viewed through the prism of human rights, might turn out to be the only key to significant progress and credibility for the UN Human Rights Council. In any case, what is missing from Ahmed Shaheed’s misleading accounts about human rights in Iran is the crucial role that America’s foreign policy prerogatives have played and continue to play behind the backdrop of a fierce propaganda against the Islamic Republic, pointed out the paper. The new UNHRC report on Iran – just like its predecessors – is hypocritical in denouncing the alleged lack of human rights in the country while failing to report the systematic violation of basic rights of America’s black citizens. Images of white police brutalizing black protesters with dogs, clubs and hoses were broadcast worldwide during the summer unrest, causing the United States severe diplomatic damage. But this was never enough for the UNHRC to write any report on the situation! It takes realpolitik even more than morality or enlightenment for the UNHRC to come up with such an overdue report! Without realpolitik, there is too little incentive and commitment for the 'impartial” UNHRC officials, policymakers and rapporteurs to actually bring about the sort of reports and changes that would make the systematic deaths of America’s black citizens and their violent aftermaths, a thing of the past. Until that happens, it would also be extremely difficult for the UNHRC to convince the international community that it is sincere in its intentions and reports to promote human rights when it appears unable or unwilling to live up to its own human rights standards, pointed out the paper in conclusion./end