TEHRAN - The Foreign Ministry on Monday responded to the European Parliament’s allegations of human rights violations in Iran, saying the accusations as baseless, hasty and unconstructive.

“Iran considers the allegations stipulated in a resolution issued by the European Parliament representatives as a hasty non-constructive move which is compiled based on distortion of the existing realities which have been forged and presented by unreliable and rancorous politically-biased groups,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Seyed Abbas Mousavi said. 

The remarks by Mousavi came as the European Parliament, the legislative branch of the European Union, adopted a resolution on December 19 accusing Iran of violating the human rights of its citizens in the last month’s protests.

Mousavi asked the European Parliament representatives to answer certain questions such the French suppression of Yellow Vest protestors, discrimination against minorities in Europe, and silence over the illegal sanctions against the 80-million Iranian population by the Trump administration. 

“This is the question: What is the European Parliament’s stance towards blatant violation of the French protesters’ rights, killing, blinding and arresting a large number of them or their stance towards the obvious discrimination adopted against tribal, racial and religious minorities in certain European countries? 

“What is the reason behind the European Parliament’s silence and its refusal to condemn violation of rights of over 80 million of Iranian people who are under U.S. illegal and immoral sanctions?”

Mousavi called on the EP to return to the path of fairness and realism, embark on increasing its capacity of tolerating normal views of dissidents, remove restrictions on their own citizens in some member states, resort to lawful interaction with the civilized nations based on mutual respect, respect different principles and values and avoid politically-tainted policies towards other nations. 

In a statement on Thursday, Mousavi also reacted to the latest UN General Assembly resolution on the situation of human rights in Iran.

He said the resolution was partial, confrontational, based upon selective approaches, and meant to severe political objectives.

Mousavi said an obvious reason proving illegitimacy of the resolution was that it had been endorsed by the front of Zionism and the reactionary regional regimes, who ignore all kinds of human rights norms, sponsor terrorism and extremism and violate the basic human rights.

“The political and instrumental use of human rights and the employment of double standards in this area are in contravention of the sustainable promotion of human rights,” the spokesman said.

Mousavi also said the destructive approach that supporters of the resolution have adopted against Iran contains multiple errors and flaws, such as instrumental and political use of human rights, ignoring the values, the creeds, and the distinguishing cultural features of various societies, ignoring the facts under the influence of an anti-Iran media propaganda, and the disregard for and silence on the widespread violation of the Iranian nation’s human rights as a result of the cruel and illegal sanctions.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran is a democratic religious administration that has taken steps to promote and advance human rights at national, regional and international levels within the framework of religious and moral commitments and in conformity with its Constitution, normal regulations and international treaties, and also feels practically obligated to observe them,” the spokesman added.

On December 18, the UN General Assembly passed the resolution calling on Iran to stop committing human rights abuses. The measure proposed by Canada passed on a vote of 81-30, with 70 abstentions.

Part of the resolution called on Iran to release prisoners detained during the November protests. 

MJ/PA