NCRI – On Thursday, at a press conference at the Iranian regime’s embassy in Madrid, Seyed Davoud Salehi, mullahs regime ambassador to Spain, defended inhuman punishment of amputations and hangings by the clerics, Spanish Media reported. He criticized the reports on abysmal record of human rights violations in Iran and called on the monitoring organizations to respect such inhuman punishments as "local traditions."
Iranian regime’s ambassador to Spain compared chopping off the hands of victims to a "surgeon amputating a limb to prevent the spread of gangrene. " He argued that the death penalty was necessary "to preserve the health of society as a whole." Salehi said that the Iran’s judiciary had decided to carry out execution and stoning less in public to prevent images of hanging and stoning in public squares being broadcast around the world.
"Our laws establish that we amputate a hand of those who steal. It is not accepted in the West, but local customs must be respected", he said.
Over 300 victims were sentenced to death last year, more than 70 per cent increase than the 2006 official count.
So far this year according to state-run media more than 30 executions mainly carried out in January, three stoning sentences of two women and a man, death sentence of a man for drinking, cutting the hands and feet of the victims, death sentences by throwing the victims off cliff in sack.