The High Council for Human Rights of the Islamic Republic of Iran issued a statement in response to the action of the United States in publishing the illusory report on the state of human rights. The text of this statement is as follows:
The U.S. State Department, which is under the pressure of public opinion more than ever due to its comprehensive support for the crime against humanity and genocide of the Zionist regime in the Gaza Strip, and the widespread protest movements against its warmongering and anti-human rights policies have taken place both inside this country and in other countries all around the world, has once again published an alleged annual report on the state of human rights in different countries, including the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Although in fact this report is nothing but the purposeful repetition of false, baseless and undocumented data and information published in the anti-Iranian media, these claims expressed by a regime that commits all kinds of gross violations of human rights and the rights of nations, including colonialism, war-mongering and the use of atomic bombs, coups and the overthrow of popular and democratic governments, the production and spread and explicit use of terrorism, unilateralism and invasion of other countries, looting of other countries' resources, reserves and energy, deliberate attack to the airliner, the instrumental use of cruel and illegal and unilateral sanctions against independent countries in order to put pressure on them and the targeted assassination of human rights defenders, full support and accompaniment of the crimes of the Zionist regime in Gaza, etc., is extravagant, bitter, disgusting and humorous.
The United States actions in recent decades are an exhibition of war crimes, crimes against humanity, terrorism and human rights violations in the West Asian region. The attack on Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya under the pretext of democratization, which according to the official statistics of the United Nations led to the killing of thousands of civilians, including innocent women and children the creation of the ISIS terrorist group and its instrumental use against the nations of the region, including in Syria and Iraq the crime of assassination of martyr General Qassem Soleimani, the greatest defender of human rights of the nations of the region and the hero of the fight against terrorism, and his companions in a third country, which, according to the UN rapporteur at the time, is a clear violation of the right to life contained in Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights the continuous violation of the sovereignty of Yemen and Syria and the comprehensive support of the killing machine of the Zionist regime in Gaza is only a part of the crimes of this regime, which will never be erased from the memory of the nations of the region and have resulted in the emergence and manifestation of more and more hatred and disgust of the public opinion and the demand for the immediate withdrawal of the forces of this aggressor regime from the region.
It should be remembered that in the past decades, the United States has imposed a wide range of illegal and cruel unilateral sanctions against countries such as Iran, Syria, Russia, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, etc., which have harmful effects and consequences on human rights and fundamental freedoms of human beings, including the right to life, the right to health, the right to education, the right to development, and the right to enjoy the highest standard of living, etc.. These sanctions, according to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Impacts of Unilateral Coercive Measures on the Enjoyment of Human, have been accompanied by over-compliance of companies and financial institutions and have put additional human and economic challenges on the countries under sanctions, and are actually considered a crime against humanity.
It is very clear that the American people are also victims of racism, arrogance and tyranny of the rulers of the White House, and numerous cases of human rights violations, including the rights of women and children, blacks and the colored, immigrants, prisoners, etc., can be seen in this country. Clearly, the U.S. has the highest number of prisoners in the world, more than two million people are in prison and another 4.5 million people are free on bail. The number of American women prisoners has increased 700 times in the last three decades. People who have a history of imprisonment are prohibited from participating in elections and are mostly sent to prison.
The wave of disclosure of harassment of women and girls in the workplace and public places, which caused a controversy in social media with the hashtag ME TOO, revealed the frequent and normal occurrence of the destruction of human dignity in the U.S. society. The widespread and systematic racist violence by the U.S. police against African Americans in the United States has become a well-established pattern of violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Despite the fact that the United States claimed the freedom of peaceful assembly, the 2020 American protests revealed new dimensions of the country's government's intolerance and violence in gatherings and showed how the U.S. police suppresses protesters in the worst way in front of social media monitors. More than 26 million Americans participated in the protests related to the killing of George Floyd. Rallies were often accompanied by repression and police violence against protesters.
The United States is one of the countries that has the highest use of torture. The torture that the U.S. uses in its prisons inside the country or in its prisons in other countries are inhumane techniques that are called enhanced interrogation techniques. These techniques, designed in consultation with psychologists, include violence, isolation and sleep deprivation, administered by undercover medical officers. Different minority groups in the U.S. are the targets of all kinds of discrimination, and blacks in particular are disproportionately the targets of racism in this country. African Americans are among the most socioeconomically marginalized minorities in the country, with the highest rates of disenfranchisement in federal and state elections, incarceration, victims of hate speech on social media, and discrimination. One third of the prison population in the United States is of African descent, and one third is Hispanic and Latino, while these two minorities make up only about 13 and 18 percent of the country's population, respectively. This leads to the creation of obstacles such as social exclusion, lack of employment, lack of access to suitable housing and social programs and credits in the lives of people with a criminal record.
In this context and considering the U.S. black record in the field of human rights, both in the international and domestic arena, this country is not in a position to preach to others in this area or to investigate the human rights situation in other countries.
By expressing its support for the protest movements against the Zionist regime and its supporters, including the United States, the U.K., France, Germany, etc., the High Council for Human Rights requests the international human rights mechanisms and arrangements to fulfill their inherent and fundamental duty in ending the widespread cases of gross and serious violations of human rights, crimes against humanity and genocide by the Zionist regime in the Gaza Strip, and devote their efforts to pursuing the responsibility of the perpetrators and western supporters of these crimes.