UN Special Rapporteur is a liar: Iran’s Judiciary chief

TEHRAN, Feb. 2 (MNA) – Judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani said the report provided about human rights situation in Iran by UN Special Rapporteur Ahmed Shaheed is “full of lies” and “this man (Ahmed Shaheed) is a liar.” Speaking at an expert meeting on human rights in Tehran on Thursday, Larijani accused the West of exercising double-standards in regard to human rights. He said Iran, as a model of democracy, has held the highest number of elections over the last three decades, and during these years both rightists and leftists have been in power while in certain Muslim countries even one election has not been held and the UN human rights watchdog says nothing about them. Larijani went on to say that Syria has come under an unprecedented pressure for its support to the Palestinians, but certain Arab states “who lack wisdom” voted against Syria at the UN Security Council, and if Russia and China had not vetoed the motion at the council the West would have found an opportunity to directly intervene in Syria and violate human rights. The senior Judiciary official went on to say that there is no complaint about human right violations in Bahrain in which “people are run over by cars in daylight”. He said Shaheed has claimed that the judge who handled the Kahrizak case has “immunity” while this judge has been suspended from his job and “this is provable”. He added, “Unfortunately, today human rights issue has been turned into a tool and we should open our eyes to this.” The secretary general of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights said in November last year that the appointment of Shaheed as the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran was part of the Iranophobia project.