A senior Iranian human rights official condemned on Friday "hypocritical and deviant" annual report by the United States on the human rights situation in 2021 in Iran and other countries.

In a tweet, Kazem Gharibabadi, the judiciary chief's deputy for international affairs and secretary of the country's High Council for Human Rights, said the United States, "as the main violator of human rights," is in no position to comment on the rights situation in other countries.

He made the remarks in reaction to the U.S. State Department's annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices released on Tuesday.

The U.S. reports are aimed at diverting global public opinion from Washington's "flagrant" human rights violations and its construction of fake models in this field, Gharibabadi said, according to the Iranian Students' News Agency.

Voicing concerns about the human rights situation in the United States, the Iranian official said the American society in 2021 was still suffering from race discrimination and injustice, while refugees and migrants in the country were widely subjected to violence and harassment.

Using coercion as well as "cruel, inhuman and unilateral" sanctions against some countries was the prominent feature of U.S. foreign policy in the past year, Gharibabadi added.

Also commenting on the U.S. reports, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said Thursday, "The U.S. government, with a history full of wars, coups, aggression, assassinations, kidnappings, economic blockades and the killing of innocent people around the world, has been the main violator of human rights and, therefore, it is in no way qualified to speak of such sublime concepts as human rights."

(Cover: A rally protesting violence against Asian-Americans at Sara D. Roosevelt Park in the Chinatown neighborhood in New York City, U.S., February 14, 2022. /CPF)