Tehran sees the report of US on religious freedom in Iran as 'politically motivated, unrealistic, baseless and biased', Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Wednesday.

'In the report, a distorted politically-motivated image of religious freedom in Iran is created which is accompanied by baseless accusations,' Bahram Qasemi said referring to the recent US secretary of State's International Religious Freedom Report for 2016.

'To eliminate religious differences and working towards their proximity, one should avoid politicizing the issue,' he said, adding that the only way to do so is through dialogue based on respect to each other's beliefs.

It seems that the US government has forgotten the important goal and is merely obsessed with political exploitation of religious diversity in some countries of the world, the Iranian official said, adding the assumption that the US does not have a realistic assessment of internal conditions of the countries, particularly the demographic and religious conditions.

Iranian people perform their religious rituals freely based on the constitution, and the country's law supports the freedom, Qasemi said.

In the information age and today's integrated world it is quite clear that racial and religous discrimination, Islamophobia and xenophobia is a prevalent practice among American politicians, with Muslims living in the country being targeted by violent, discriminative acts of state institutions, like police and security forces, the spokesman said, to the extent that harassment, insulting to religious and sacred beliefs, lack of freedom in performing religious rituals, and raid to Muslim holy places are among everyday issues in the US.

The US is expected to take legal and practical measures to boost religious freedom, especially with regard to Muslims' rights, instead of judging religious freedom status in other countries, Qasemi said.
 

News ID 188642