TEHRAN - Iran admitted on Monday that some of its dissidents could be wrongfully imprisoned, but said that the values of the Islamic republic are "red lines" which should not be crossed by the Europeans.
"I do not want to say that everyone who is in prison has to be in prison... there might be cases where we do not agree (with Iran's ultra-conservative judiciary)," Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi told reporters.
"We hope that anybody who is in prison for no good reason will be freed," he said.
But "human rights have to be tackled specifically in each society based on its cultural and religious values... and respecting these red lines which one can find in any society," he added, in a joint press conference with his Danish counterpart, Per Stig Moeller.
"In Denmark you have a red line, you have red lines in the United States, in other societies and in our society," Kharazi said.
Kharazi added that "focussing on certain (individual) cases", as does the EU, "might not be helpful on the contrary it might be counterproductive."
However he said: "We welcome human rights dialogue with Europe."
For his part, Moeller said: "Of course we have differences in culture, differences in traditions and religion, (but) based on some universal principles we are having a human rights dialogue and we must develop it."
The EU started a dialogue with Iran on human rights in December 2002, as part of wider discussions on political and commercial cooperation.
Europeans are concerned about fundamental liberties, closures of newspapers and execution of minors. Tehran has agreed on a suspension of passing stoning sentences but the dialogue has been frozen due to the Iranian nuclear case.
Iran has constantly maintained that its human rights are based on religious values and has accused Europe of violating the rights of its minorities.
04/11/2005 13:03 GMT