- 23 June 2011
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- Human Rights in Iran
The recent appointment of Ahmed Shaheed as the UN human rights monitor on Iran has triggered an assortment of reactions from the Iranian government regarding whether he will be allowed to visit the country for his investigation.
An international observer could interpret the varied responses as a sign of Tehran’s weakness in failing to put forward a united strategy. Or, it could be viewed as a deliberate strategy on one of the most critical and vulnerable issues for Iran to not to have a single reaction, thus enabling Tehran to keep its options open.
The first reaction came from Iran’s parliament the day after Shaheed’s appointment. Tehran Times reported that Mohammad-Karim Abedi, Vice-Chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s Human Rights Committee, said Shaheed would not be allowed to travel to Iran, arguing that the UN Human Right Council should instead investigate “the United States, the UK and the Zionist regime” as “the greatest violators of the human rights in the world.”