Iran parliament bans UN rights envoy visit to Tehran

Jun 19, 2011, 15:43 GMT

Tehran - The Iranian parliament will not allow the newly appointed United Nations human rights special rapporteur for Iran to come to Tehran on a fact-finding visit, it was reported Sunday.

The official news agency IRNA reported that the parliament's Human Rights Committee decided Sunday that Ahmed Shaheed, former Maldivian foreign minister, should not be allowed to visit Tehran.

Committee deputy chairman Mohammad-Karim Abedi told IRNA that before investigating Iran, the UN should first examine human rights violations in the United States and Israel.

Also, the commander of Iran's voluntary Basij forces charged Sunday that the UN has become a 'colonial institution and puppet of arrogant powers.'

'Many of the UN decisions and subsidiary organs have no longer any value for the world's people,' General Mohammad Reza Naqdi told IRNA.

Tehran had earlier termed the UN decision to appoint a special human rights envoy to Iran as 'purely politically motivated through US pressure and therefore unjustifiable.'

According to Tehran, the UN and international human rights organizations lack an accurate understanding of Islamic norms, saying human rights criteria could not be standardized but must be assessed according to the culture and beliefs of the relevant countries.

The UN has several times voiced concern by what it saw as grave violations of human rights in Iran.

Appointing country-specific special envoys is controversial at the UN, but such rapporteurs also exist for several nations regularly cited as human rights abusers, such as North Korea and Myanmar, or failed states, like Somalia.

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