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EU over-compliant with US, applies double standards to human rights: Iran deputy FM

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Ali Bagheri Kani

Iran’s top negotiator in the talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal has taken the European Union to task for its silence toward violation of Iranians’ rights by the United States while expressing concern about the situation of human rights in the country.

Ali Bagheri Kani, who is also deputy foreign minister for political affairs, made the remark in a Monday tweet, in an apparent reaction to some European countries' interventionist remarks on the recent riots in Iran.

He said the EU’s “deafening silence” in the face of unlawful sanctions that the United States has imposed on Iran, which amount to systematic violations of Iranians’ rights, prove that the bloc applies double standards towards the issue of human rights.

"The EU's deafening silence & over-compliance with the U.S. unlawful unilateral sanctions as well as widespread & systematic violations of the human rights of innocent Iranian people, as documented by @AlenaDouhan, is emblematic of its double standards vis-à-vis human rights," he said.

In a Sunday statement on behalf of the EU, the bloc's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell criticized Tehran for what he called a "disproportionate" use of force against protesters.

Protests have broken out in Tehran and several Iranian cities over the September 16 death of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian woman who died at a hospital a few days after collapsing at a police station in the capital, where she and a group of others were receiving educational training on dress code rules.

Despite Iranian officials’ clarification on the circumstances surrounding Amini’s death, violent street protests have led to attacks on security officers and acts of vandalism against public property and sanctities.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on Sunday strongly censured the United States for its attempts to interfere in the country’s domestic affairs and instigate riots and instability in Iran in the aftermath of Amini's death.

In another tweet, Bagheri Kani raised doubt about European countries' claim that they are concerned about the situation of human rights in Iran while they still continue to comply with the US-led sanctions on medicine and medical equipment.

"The basic question is: how can the European States that refuse to provide medicine and bandages needed to mitigate the endless sufferings and pains of butterfly children and cause the death of these innocent children, be concerned about the situation of human rights in Iran?" the Iranian diplomat tweeted.

The US sanctions against Iran have been choking up the financial channels that could be used towards providing the Islamic Republic with the cure for epidermolysis bullosa (EB) sufferers and other direly-needed medical supplies.

Washington reinstated the cruel economic sanctions after unilaterally abandoning the 2015 deal between the Islamic Republic and world powers.

Iran's Ambassador to Sweden Ahmad Ma’soumifar said in July that a Swedish pharmaceutical company keeps halting the supply of special bandages needed to treat Iranian patients suffering from EB in full compliance with American sanctions on Iran.

“Is this not a blatant violation of the rights of children and a crime against humanity?” wrote Ma’soumifar on his Twitter page.


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