NCRI – The speaker of the Iranian regime’s parliament has branded United Nations criticism of the regime’s human rights record as ‘political emptiness’.
Ali Larijani also attacked the report by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon as lacking ‘honor and conscience’.
Mr Ban expressed concerns this week over the soaring rate of executions in Iran – up to 675 last year – and called for the release of activists, lawyers, journalists and all political prisoners.
He said in a report to the UN Human Rights Council: “The new administration has not made any significant improvement in the promotion and protection of freedom of expression and opinion, despite pledges made by the president during his campaign and after his swearing in.
“The new government has not changed its approach regarding the application of the death penalty and seems to have followed the practice of previous administrations, which relied heavily on the death penalty to combat crime.”
But Larijani hit back: “The United Nations is suffering from political emptiness.
“A report by the United Nations was delivered that included allegations that it was not expected. It was unimaginable. This is a important issue. They must explain why they are saying these things.
“If nuclear weapons are their concern, then these remarks shows this is just an excuse. They later talked about the missiles issue, which is baseless. Now they have gone to the human rights issue.
“They accuse us of nonsense such as increase in execution of drug smugglers. We tell these human rights custodians that most of the drugs are being imported from Afghanistan. You should be held accountable for that.
“Our enemies want us to kill us, then import drugs into the country, then we are condemned in a United Nations report. This not honor and conscience for the UN.”
“We ask the UN why it expects us to recreate their culture here, and why we should we choose their legal system? This is modern barbarism.”
