UNITED NATIONS (AP) Iran's defiant response to a United Nations report on the country's human rights violations fits a pattern of conflicting signals from the Islamic Republic since the election of its new moderate-leaning president, a U.N. investigator said Thursday.
Ahmeed Shaheed, the special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran, said he has observed a change of tone in his conversations with Iranian officials since the election of President Hassan Rouhani, with officials displaying greater willingness to acknowledge deficiencies in Iran's human rights record.
He was also encouraged that Iranian authorities are more open to discussing the impact of international sanctions, which Shaheed said are taking an increasingly severe social and economic toll.
Yet Iran's public rejection of Shaheed's report was fierce.
In a detailed written response, the Iranian government accused the U.N. special rapporteur of using "falsified and exaggerated data to arrive at his pre-desired conclusions." Iranian diplomat Forouzandeh Vadiati said Shaheed disregarded Iran's Islamic culture "and considers whatever he sees in the West as an international standard for the entire world."