GENEVA  Brushing aside allegations that it has resorted to torture, executions and mass detentions to crush political opposition, Iran made a defiant appearance before the United Nations’ human rights body here on Monday, saying that it promoted and defended human rights and that Western critics were exploiting the issue for political ends.

Iran is “in full compliance with the relevant international commitments it has taken on in a genuine and long-term approach to safeguard human rights,” Mohammad Larijani, secretary general of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights, told the United Nations Human Rights Council, which was conducting its first review of the country.

“The situation of human rights has been consistently used as a tool to apply pressure against us” by some Western governments, Mr. Larijani said.

In an apparent riposte to comments by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton earlier Monday that Iran was “moving toward a military dictatorship,” Mr. Larijani said Iran “is becoming one of the prominent democratic states in the region.”