Sweden Initiates Human Rights Violation Resolution Against Tehran

Countries are not merely defined by their geographical locations that others recognize solely by their dimensions and angles. In addition to their geographical image, each country possesses a mental image in the international system. In other words, this mental image reflects the 'judgment' that others have of a particular country. The behavior of countries towards that specific country is not only based on its geographical dimensions but also on the image of it. For example, what is your image of the Swiss government? Are you willing to invest in Switzerland? The same question can be asked about Cambodia in Asia or Congo in Africa. Are you willing to invest in these countries? Your answers to these questions are not solely based on the geographical image of that country but are more influenced by the image of that country. This characteristic of each country is referred to in political literature as 'international credibility.' Therefore, political systems spend significant costs to maintain a favorable image in the international system. What is the international image of the Islamic Republic? To answer this question, if we want to have a comprehensive picture of the image of the Islamic Republic, we must examine the four-decade history of this regime, which is beyond the scope of this note. For example, the dialogue of civilizations proposed by Mohammad Khatami was an innovative effort to present a different image of Iran, which practically did not lead to anything amid internal conflicts to the extent that Khatami is now banned from being portrayed. When dialogue and conversation are removed from the members within a regime and replaced by anger and hostility, what can be the international image of that country? Since a comprehensive examination of the international credibility of the Islamic Republic is beyond the scope of this note, I will only refer to a 'rare case' in recent days. After a visit to Tehran, Sweden has initiated a human rights violation resolution against its host within a week of a high-level Swedish delegation's visit to Iran. Such a case has either never occurred or has rarely happened. The story is that on February 11 and 12, the Prime Minister of Sweden visited Tehran at the head of a high-level delegation. During this trip, in addition to meeting with Hassan Rouhani, he also met with Ayatollah Khamenei. However, within a week of this visit, the Swedish government has submitted a draft resolution on human rights violations in Iran to the UN Human Rights Council. If such an action were taken by any country against another, it inherently carries an inappropriate message, but if this action were taken by Canada, for instance, Tehran could at least justify that this action occurred in the context of severed relations between Tehran and Ottawa. But what is Tehran's response now when we recall that the Prime Minister of a country like Sweden was warmly welcomed in Tehran during official ceremonies and taken to meet the leader of the revolution, yet within a week becomes the initiator of such a resolution? If Sweden had done this with North Korea, wouldn't it be true that North Korea's image is a tarnished one? Moreover, now that Sweden has taken such action, the next question is what the level of the Islamic Republic's reaction to this action has been. Was the Swedish ambassador summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the very least? It is interesting to note that within the entire governance of the Islamic Republic (government, parliament, leadership, etc.), the only reaction came from the spokesperson of the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who said: 'The submission of the human rights resolution draft is not a new issue and has no relation to the visit of the Prime Minister of Sweden to our country(!).' The condemnation of Saudi Arabia by Sweden and Riyadh's reaction The spokesperson of the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has taken such a wrong and inaccurate position while being well aware that countries are less sensitive about the preservation of their international credibility than their geographical boundaries. Just one example is enough for the spokesperson to know what a gross error he has committed in concealing the truth. In March 2015, a sudden storm swept through the Riyadh-Stockholm relations. Riyadh recalled its ambassador from Sweden, and Stockholm threatened to cancel its military contract with Saudi Arabia. The story began when the Swedish Foreign Minister condemned the Saudi government by calling it a dictatorship and condemned the flogging punishment for a blogger critical of the Riyadh government named Raif Badawi. Saudi Arabia's reaction to this slight criticism from a Swedish minister was so severe that after summoning the Swedish ambassador, Riyadh recalled its ambassador from Stockholm, prevented his pre-scheduled speech at the Arab League, and announced that it would not grant visas to Swedish citizens. In support of Riyadh, several Arab countries, including the United Arab Emirates, also recalled their ambassadors. All of this reaction from Saudi Arabia was only to a verbal statement from the Swedish Foreign Minister, not a formal position of the entire Swedish government. Now compare this to the submission of a draft resolution on human rights violations against the Islamic Republic to the UN Human Rights Council by Sweden just a week after the Swedish Prime Minister's visit to Tehran. It is even more interesting to know that the tension between Saudi Arabia and Sweden ended within two weeks with Sweden's retreat and the apology of the Swedish monarchy to Saudi Arabia. Within two weeks, Riyadh announced that following the apology, the Swedish ambassador returned to Stockholm. The opportunistic retreat of Stockholm from its human rights positions against Saudi Arabia faced severe protests from human rights organizations in that country at the time. Regarding Saudi Arabia, it seems that this country has so far prevented its condemnation (including on the Yemen issue) in international forums by spending oil dollars. However, this note was written to examine a 'rare case' that first shows how much Iran's 'international credibility' has declined and secondly how weak the 'persuasive power' of the Islamic Republic is even in face-to-face meetings with a European country that within a week of the Swedish Prime Minister's visit to Iran, this country becomes the initiator of a human rights violation resolution against its host. This note is not written to attribute Sweden's action to ingratitude, as such an action is very justified based on the gross and systematic violation of human rights in Iran, and Sweden has a history of such actions. What this note conveys is that this rare event first clearly indicates the tarnished image of the Islamic Republic and secondly serves as evidence of the lethargy of a regime incapable of defending its image on the international level that has shown no effective reaction if it truly claims to have a clean and spotless human rights record.