Participants attending the Human Rights Day 2010 event in Tabriz, Iran
The United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) Tehran, participated in three events to mark the Human Rights Day in December 2010, in Tabriz and Tehran.
Two of the events were organized by the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) and the third by a number of NGOs, led by the Organization for Defending Victims of Violence (ODVV).
In the first event on 8 December, a seminar on ‘Human Rights, Peace and International Friendship’, held in Tabriz, UNIC National Information Officer, Mr. Mohammad Moghadam read the UN Secretary-General’s message and also explained the work of the Human Rights Council, including the important function of Universal Periodic Review. UNIC also distributed copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The seminar was attended by local government officials, NGO members, journalists, university students and professors.
Speaking in the seminar, a professor of law at Tehran’s Shahid Beheshti University, Dr. Mohsen Abdollahi, said that the UN Security Council considers violation of human rights as a threat to international peace and security. “Violation of human rights has resulted in military intervention in the internal affairs of countries which have abused human rights of its own citizens”. He added that the clearest example of such an intervention was Kosovo. He reiterated that violation of human rights and disrespect for the basic rights and freedoms of minorities has been the root cause of many conflicts.
In another event, also organized by the Islamic Human Rights Commission on 11 December in Tehran, one of the speakers, Dr. Hossein Mehrparvar of Shahid Beheshti University said that people’s lives will improve if all articles of UDHR are implemented. He said UDHR is not incompatible with Islamic human rights teachings.
UNIC Director Sunil Narula read the UN Secretary-General’s Human Rights Day message.
In the third event, on 13 December a seminar was held on the theme of ‘Reviewing Human Rights in the Contemporary Era” by a number of NGOs and attended by government officials, civil society representatives and others. UNIC NIO Mr. Moghadam read the UN Secretary-General’s Human Rights Day message.
Mr. Mohammad Javad Larijani, Secretary General of the High Council for Human Rights of the Iranian judiciary, as the main speaker, criticized Western countries for misusing the issue of human rights and said that the international community had been rather passive vis-à-vis the West’s poor human rights record.