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Iran recounts US rights abuses in 'American Human Rights Week'

Yusef Jalali
Press TV, Tehran

Every year in late June and early July, Iranians commemorate the American Human Rights Week.

The occasion marks a series of tragic incidents all falling within the same time frame, killing hundreds of Iranians in the early years after the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

One of the most tragic incidents was the 1988 shooting down of an Iranian airliner by the US navy, which killed all of the 290 people on board the plane.
More than three decades on, Iran is still waiting for an apology from Washington.

The American Human Rights Week also marks the 1981 bombing of the headquarters of Iran's Islamic Republic party, carried out by the anti-Iran Mojahedin-e Khalq terrorist organization, known as the MKO.

Seventy-three leading officials, including the then Justice Chief, Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti were killed in the blast.

The Islamic Republic says the MKO is responsible for killing 12,000 Iranians in several terror attacks.

In 2012, the US and Europe removed the MKO from their lists of terrorist organizations, and since then, they have been taking part in the terror group's annual summits.

The 1987 chemical bombardment of Iran's western city of Sardasht is another tragedy that falls in the same period on the Iranian calendar.

Iraq's chemical weapons were reportedly produced using materials supplied by the US and other Western countries.

The 1981 attempted assassination of the then Iranian President Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei by the MKO is also among the incidents that is marked in the American Human Rights Week.

Iran says the US footprints can be traced in all of the incidents that fall in this week. People here say the title 'American Human Rights Week' is a jab at Washington to question its dual take on human rights and to expose it to the world.


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