Iran's top human rights official censured the "hypocritical" approach pursued by the self-styled advocates of human rights in the world.
Addressing the 31st UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday, Mohammad Javad Larijani, secretary-general of the Iranian High Council for Human Rights, said self-proclaimed standard-bearers of human rights in the world are "close allies" with regimes that deprive their people of the right to decide their future, Press TV reported.
He said the so-called advocates of human rights are "totally ignoring the responsibility which they bear" under "basic international human rights treaties".
Larijani highlighted double standards adopted by regimes that deprive their citizens of the "very basic and minimal right to participate in shaping their destiny" while claiming "adherence to human rights".
He touched on Iran's recently-held twinned elections for the parliament and the Assembly of Experts that saw a voter turnout of over 60%.
The official said the two elections serve as an example for other countries in the world to follow.
"Now a new model for public sphere is emerging: representative democracy based on Islamic rationality," he said, adding that Iran's political establishment is a "democratic polity based on Islamic rationality rather than secular-liberal rationality."
Larijani said Iran's elections offer the people of the Muslim world a new option: "to reform their society, they are not obliged to choose between secular-liberal democracies or sink into extremism".
Ballots Not Bullets
Larijani also reaffirmed Iran's longtime position that ongoing crisis in Syria must be resolved through free election and not militarily.
"Iran has always insisted that there is no military solution to the Syrian crisis. Only ballots—not bullets—can ultimately usher in a new era in Syria," said the human rights chief.
Larijani stressed that Iran has constantly "advocated an immediate ceasefire and an end to the bloodshed" and "dialogue between the Syrian government and the opposition groups who reject terrorism".
The foreign-sponsored conflict in Syria, which started in March 2011, has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and left millions injured and displaced.
