Iran on Tuesday slammed US President Joe Biden’s “hypocrisy” a day after new US sanctions were announced against Tehran over the deadly crackdown on protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini more than two weeks.
At least 92 people have been killed in Iran since September 16, according to the Oslo-based NGO Iran Human Rights, while authorities put the death toll at around 60, including 12 members of the security forces. Over a thousand people were arrested.
Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, died three days after her arrest for violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code, which notably requires women to wear the veil.
Her death sparked a wave of protests in Iran and rallies in solidarity with Iranian women around the world.
“This week, the United States will impose additional costs on perpetrators of violence against peaceful protesters,” Biden warned in a statement on Monday: “We will continue to hold Iranian officials to account and support the right of Iranians. to demonstrate freely.
Mr. Biden gave no indication of the measures envisaged against Iran, already targeted by heavy American economic sanctions, largely linked to its controversial nuclear program.
Tehran reacted on Tuesday by denouncing the “hypocrisy” of the American president.
“Joe Biden should have thought a little bit about his country’s human rights record before talking about the humanitarian situation (in Iran), even if the hypocrisy does not require deep reflection,” said said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani on Instagram.
“The American president should rather worry about the (consequences of) the numerous sanctions […] against the nation of Iran which clearly represent an example of a crime against humanity,” he added.
“Students prosecuted”
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had already attacked Washington on Monday, accusing the United States and Israel – two sworn enemies of Iran – of fomenting the protest movement, the largest in the country since that of 2019 against rising gasoline prices.
“I say clearly that these riots and the insecurity are the work of the United States, the usurping Zionist regime (Israel, editor’s note), their mercenaries and certain traitor Iranians who helped them abroad”, declared the Ayatollah Khamenei, 83, in his first reaction to the protests.
“The United States cannot tolerate a strong and independent Iran,” he said.
Human rights organizations have denounced the violent repression in particular against students during incidents which occurred overnight from Sunday to Monday at the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, the most prestigious in Iran.
Iran Human Rights (IHR) released two videos, one apparently showing Iranian police on motorbikes chasing students running through an underground parking lot, and the other of police on motorbikes taking away people whose heads are covered with bags in black fabric.
In other footage, which AFP could not independently verify, gunfire and shouting can be heard as large numbers of people run down a street at night.
Riot police fired steel balls and tear gas at students who chanted “Woman, life, freedom”, “students prefer death to humiliation”, according to the Iranian news agency Mehr.
For its part, Canada has imposed new sanctions against Iranian officials, and the British Foreign Office on Monday summoned Iran’s top diplomat to London.