The head of Iran’s judiciary has slammed the recent report by UN special rapporteur Ahmad Shaheed on the state of human rights in the Islamic Republic, describing it as “ridiculous, incorrect and undocumented.”
ISNA reports that on Wednesday, Ayatollah Sadegh Larijan told a meeting of judicial department officials: “One of the main shortcomings of the report and indeed its absurdity is that the rapporteur has only discussed the claims of the opponents of the regime.”
Shaheed published his first report on human rights in Iran this week.
The report is critical of “the treatment of civil activists, of widespread arrests, lack of freedom of assembly, disregard for women’s and minority rights and the frequent use of the death penalty” as instances of human rights violations.
Larijan accused Shaheed of failing to remain impartial in preparing his report.
The UN Human Rights Council appointed Shaheed, a former Maldives foreign minister, to act as the special human rights rapporteur for Iran.
Iran condemned the appointment while rejecting international claims that human rights are in decline in Iran. Accordingly, Shaeed was banned from visiting Iran.
Larijani said: “It is clear that the human rights issue against Iran has a political aim, and our opposition to the visit from the special rapoprteur for Iran was exactly due to this.”
In his report, Shaheed expressed the hope that Iranian authorities will agree to let him visit the country so he can further evaluate the cases documented in his first report.
