The Secretary General of World Forum for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought said that human dignity and justice are fundamental Islamic values, arguing that Iran’s resistance to what he described as global hegemony has made its approach to justice a source of hope for oppressed people around the world.
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Hujjat-ul-Islam Hamid Shahriari, speaking at an international interfaith conference that opened in Russia on Thursday, focused on the concepts of human dignity and justice and criticized what he called the double standards of Western powers toward conflicts and human rights.
“In these critical times, I would like to speak about two Islamic values: dignity and justice,” Shahriari said, citing the Quranic verse, “And We have certainly honored the children of Adam.”
He stressed that human dignity belongs to all people regardless of their religion, denomination or beliefs, including those who do not believe in God.
According to Shahriari, justice means respecting the rights of others, while oppression involves taking away those rights through aggression and hostility. He identified the right to life, access to food and water, the right to live in one’s homeland and freedom as among the fundamental rights of every human being.
“No one has the right to kill another person unjustly, besiege them, or deprive them of food, water, shelter and homeland,” he said.
Shahriari said these principles, which he attributed to the Quran, should be upheld regardless of the religion or ideology of those concerned.
Turning to the situation in Palestine, Shahriari said the rights he had outlined were being denied to Palestinians. He described the decades-long Palestinian displacement as a profound humanitarian tragedy and accused Israel, with the support of the United States and other Western powers, of violating Palestinians’ basic rights.
He referred to the displacement of successive generations of Palestinians, the destruction of homes and property, and the humanitarian situation in Gaza. He also cited figures for Palestinian deaths and injuries, saying that tens of thousands of civilians had been killed and nearly 50,000 wounded, with children and women making up a significant proportion of the casualties.
Shahriari accused the United States, Britain and France of supporting what he called Israeli “hegemony” and argued that Western powers had applied double standards to war and justice.
“If killing is bad, it is bad everywhere. If displacement is bad, it is bad everywhere,” he said, according to the report.
He further accused Israel of describing the killing of civilians as a “just war” while characterizing efforts to defend human rights as “terrorism.”
In the final part of his speech, Shahriari turned to Iran’s confrontation with the United States, presenting the Islamic Republic’s resistance as an example of what he called “Iranian justice.”
“Today, Iranian justice is a model for the world, because it has revived hope in the hearts of the oppressed around the world and astonished the entire world,” he said.
Shahriari added that Iran had resisted what he described as U.S. aggression and emerged victorious, saying that the international community was watching the developments closely.
He also accused Israel of committing “genocide, ethnic cleansing and mass killing” in Gaza, Lebanon and other parts of the Muslim world, arguing that such actions demonstrated what he called Western double standards and disregard for the human rights of oppressed peoples.
The conference in Russia brings together participants from different religious and cultural backgrounds.
