Iran roundly dismisses German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s claims against the Islamic Republic as a futile attempt by the Berlin government to cover up its support for the Israeli occupation and its apathy towards gross human rights violations across Palestinian lands.
“It is a bitter irony that certain Western governments claim to be advocates of human rights, while they played a direct role in supplying and equipping the regime of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein with chemical warfare during its imposed war on Iran in the 1980s, and have now offered support for Israel’s massacre in Gaza,” Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kan’ani said in a statement late on Tuesday.
“Under the pretext of protecting human rights and yet by politicizing the mater, German authorities interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries, and at the same time, they bolster their own economy through stepped-up activities of their armament manufacturers,” he emphasized.
The senior Iranian diplomat advised German officials to refrain from abusing the issue of human rights through using humanitarian and fake gestures to advance their own politically-motivated efforts.
Kan’ani went on to highlight the ongoing Israeli atrocities against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, describing the deplorable conditions in Gaza and the West Bank besides the desperate situation of local residents and refugees in Rafah as an absolute disgrace and clear proof of the failure of the so-called advocates of human rights.
If Germany and its allies are really seeking to protect human rights, they should set up a special fact-finding committee to probe into Israel’s massacre of 30,000 defenseless civilians in Gaza, he pointed out.
The remarks came after the German foreign minister, in her address to the 55th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday, called for extending a mission mandated by the United Nations over the 2022 riots in Iran.
The so-called fact-finding mission on Iran was created by the UN Human Rights Council under an anti-Tehran resolution ratified at a special session in November that year.
Iran at the time condemned the resolution, saying “multifaceted political goals” were behind such anti-Iranian measures.
Tehran also said it would not cooperate with the mission, stressing that the country had already formed a national fact-finding committee to look into the events.
The allegations by Germany over human rights issues come amid a society-wide assault in the European country on anyone expressing solidarity with the Palestinians who have been under Israel’s latest brutal aggression for nearly five months.
Pro-Palestinian marches have been limited in Berlin and schools have been granted the power to place bans on Palestinian flags.
Besides, there has been a relentless campaign to harass, scare, intimidate, silence, fire, dismiss and defund people and organizations who go against the German government’s and institutions’ staunch support for Israel, according to reports.
Israel waged the devastating war on Gaza on October 7 last year after Hamas and other resistance groups launched Operation al-Aqsa Storm in the occupied territories in retaliation for the Tel Aviv regime’s incessant crimes against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Since the start of the aggression, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 29,878 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 70,215 others.
