After the 1979 Islamic Revolution and in the midst of the Cold War, the official Iranian creed was “Neither West nor East.” The same creed applies today as Iran wishes to be a single partner on the international scene. This implies to have a singular behavior at all levels, including human rights. The discourse of the Islamic republic of Iran challenges the universal notion by proposing a post-revolutionary Islamic vision of human rights.
Iran has been often invaded but never colonized. Therefore it does not struggle with a past of colonization but with the universal values inherited from the West and that are said to be remains of colonialism. This peculiar situation has put Iran at the forefront of the Islamic debate shaking the Muslim world today on issues such as human rights.
Amidst this confrontation between West and East, the Iranian civil society has come up with its own discourse on human rights, a sort of third path based upon the dialogue among civilizations, reconciling universal values with the Iranian human rights version, therefore the universal human rights debate is revised at two levels in Iran.
The paper analyzes firstly the official Iranian version since 1979 throughout internal discourses and international declarations of rejection of universal values. In a second part, the paper analyzes the reaction of Western powers to the post revolutionary Iranian human rights discourse. The third and final part of the paper will be devoted to the conciliatory approach offered by the Iranian civil society that respects both universal human rights and the Iranian vision.