The Muslim world faces daunting human rights challenges in the 21st century. We are witnessing that incidents of intolerance, discrimination and negative stereotyping against Muslim minorities are on the rise in Western countries. These states are somehow supporting or completely indifferent toward religious hatred that incite actions against Muslims. These acts include attack on Muslims’ homes, businesses, properties, schools, cultural centers or places of worship, etc.
By using freedom of expression or press as a pretext to defame religions, they encourage blasphemous acts against Islam and persuade publication of defamatory documentaries as well as screening offensive caricatures of Islamic symbols and sanctities.
In addition to the negative projection of the followers of Islam, some certain Western powers purposefully and wrongly associate Islam with terrorism to justify their illegitimate intervention in Islamic countries. Finding pretexts for their continued unlawful presence in the Middle East, they fully and consistently support armed extremist groups.
Needless to say that the continued occupation of the Palestinian territories, the gross violation of human rights by Israel, and the West’s consistent support to this regime are among the major challenges facing the Islamic ummah.
Against this invasive backdrop, the West simultaneously attempts to propagate its civilization as “universal”, which is somewhat reminiscent of a new imperialism. It is a kind of cultural imperialism or human rights imperialism. They globalize their own value-system as a “universal human rights standard” at the expense of excluding others. Likewise, the West exploits the issue of human rights to discredit Islamic sharia law to interfere in the affairs of Islamic states.
Urgent and concerted action is needed to address these challenges, which are basically in the sphere of human rights.
Aware of new international human rights challenges, Iran has spared no efforts to highlight the necessity of strengthening active cooperation and coordination among Islamic states. In this regard, Iran has played a leading role by launching a range of innovative and practical initiatives through a variety of measures, including tabling a resolution at the Thirty-Fifth Council of Foreign Ministers of Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Kampala on "Designating 5th of August of Every Year as the Islamic Human Rights and Human Dignity Day".
The resolution, adopted by consensus under the name of “Islamic human rights day for Muslim world”, opened up an opportunity for the Islamic Ummah to exchange views and reflect on the situation in the world today. The challenges are mainly foreign occupation, marginalization, instability, hunger, discrimination, defamation of religions, religious intolerance and many other things.
Iran has also sponsored an initiative to strengthen cooperation and coordination among members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in the sphere of human rights.
In fact, Iran has taken these steps to deepen interactions among Islamic nations with the aim of building a new pattern of international relations based on the principles of cultural diversity, equal rights, territorial integrity, mutual respect, friendly relations and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs. Based on this new pattern, human rights are protected and promoted through cooperation and consensus rather than confrontation and imposition of incompatible, alien and inhomogeneous values.
