TEHRAN: The brutal attack on Shajareh Tayyebeh Girl’s School in Iran’s Minab cannot be justified, covered up, and must not be met with silence and indifference, Iran’s Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araghchi told the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) during an urgent debate held on Friday afternoon.
“This war of aggression is clearly unjustified and extremely brutal. They launched this aggression on February 28 while Iran and the United States were engaged in a diplomatic process to resolve alleged US concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme. For the second time in nine months, they have betrayed diplomacy by disrupting and destroying the negotiating table,” said Araghchi.
Among the most horrific manifestations of this aggression, he said, was the “calculated and staged attack” on the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in the city of Minab in southern Iran, where more than 175 students and teachers were “massacred in a completely deliberate and brutal manner”.
“This brutal attack is merely the visible tip of a much larger iceberg; one that hides beneath its surface far worse atrocities, including the normalisation of the most egregious violations of human rights and humanitarian law, and the audacity to commit heinous crimes in a climate of complete impunity. At a time when the American and Israeli aggressors, as they claim, have the most advanced technologies and the most precise military and data systems, no one can believe that the attack on this school was anything other than a deliberate and premeditated act,” he stated.
Addressing the session virtually, Araghchi mentioned that the targetting of the Iranian school is a “war crime” and a “crime against humanity.”
“This tragedy cannot be justified, cannot be covered up, and must not be met with silence and indifference. The attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab was neither a mere accident nor a miscalculation. The contradictory statements made by the United States to justify this crime cannot absolve them of their responsibility. Condemning such a brutal attack on an inherently civilian place, where the most innocent people are present and seeking knowledge, is not simply a legal obligation within the framework of human rights systems; it is a moral and human imperative. Our conscience will judge us far more profoundly than any court of law,” the Iranian Foreign Minister added. (IANS)
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