US human rights report aims to pressure Iran

Iran’s Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani says the US State Department’s “fake” human rights report against Iran simply aimed to exert more pressure on Tehran.

In its annual human rights report released in April, the US State Department accused Iran as well as some other countries of restricting their people’s human rights.

”[The issue of] human rights is a tool for Western countries [to use] against [other] countries which do not accept their principles,” Amoli Larijani said on Thursday.

He added that Iran’s resistance against the US over the past 30 years is the source of the human rights allegations leveled by the Western countries, particularly the US, against the Islamic Republic.

Iran is being accused of not observing human rights, while it has been holding one election every year on average since the victory of the Islamic Revolution, he added.

However, the Judiciary chief stated, there is no word on human rights violations in Bahrain where people are fighting for their right to vote.

On Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast criticized the politicized and double-standard approach of the US to the issue of human rights, saying that the US is one of the main “violators of the most basic principles of human rights and international law.”

“It would be better for the US government to account for its own human rights performance instead of continuing with its wrong and repetitious behavior of accusing other countries,” he said.