A senior Iranian diplomat lashed out at growing trend of insults to Islam in the West, and called on the United Nations to take proper measures to confront the spread of Islamophobia in the western societies.
Iran’s Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Eshaq Ale-Habib called on the UN and its Committee on Information to take practical steps to promote “religious tolerance” and to counter the growing Islamophobic trend in the West, and to stop the desecration of Islam.
Ale-Habib also condemned the recent act of burning Islam’s holy book, the Quran, by an extremist US pastor, and said the incident runs counter to the UN’s efforts to promote “religious tolerance and mutual respect between religions and cultures.”
He further slammed Western media for their bias against developing countries as well as their monopolistic control over global information and communications technology.
“This is unfortunate that, by using their modern and exclusive communications technology, some developed countries are constantly distorting the realities and fabricating events… especially with regard to developing countries,” Ale-Habib told the UN’s Committee on Information on Thursday.
“Developing countries have been hindered by the unfair… duplicitous and exclusive approach of the [Western] media,” he added.
The Iranian diplomat urged the international community to promote “fair” media coverage of world events and called for essential steps to promote equal access to information and communications technology.
“We encourage the UN’s information department to play an effective role in establishing a new order of information and global communications based on the free and balanced flow of information,” Ale-Habib noted.