Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva ‫بسم هللا الرحمن الرحیم‬ Statement By Seyed Mohammad Sadati Nejad Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran 13th Session of the Forum on Minorities Item 5: Panel discussion with the Theme Towards a safer space for minorities Geneva, 20 November 2020 Madam Chair, The Iranians, guided by true teachings of Islam and inspired by our long history of tolerance among Ibrahimite religions, have always respected and revered Christianity and Judaism. The testimony for that is our full respect for our Jewish and Christian communities reflected very well through Iranian social media as well. We are proud of having a long tradition of peaceful coexistence among Iranian Muslims, Jews, Zoroastrians and Armenis. Iran is also proud to be the home of Saebins, one of the oldest religious communities in the world. The Jewish and Christian in Iran enjoy full freedom and privileges to practice their religions and to benefit from equal rights as accorded to their fellow Muslim Iranians under the law. They each have their own representative in the Parliament. We have taken maximum care to help this atmosphere of peaceful coexistence be translated and disseminated in social media platforms. Madam President, We condemn abusing the notion of anti-Semitism to label whoever criticizes the criminal and wrongful behavior of the Israeli regime in the social media. It is not only hate speech but also speech that denies or minimizes genocide and crimes against humanity that shall come under scrutiny. 1