Iran castigated Thursday the "US deep concern" over the sentencing of leading Iranian pro-reformists for taking part in a Berlin conference last year, and described it as blatant interference in its internal affairs, reported Iran’s official news agency on Friday.
"... Iran's judiciary handles the conviction of Iranian nationals independently and interferential statements on the issue are by no means acceptable," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Assefi was quoted as saying.
The minister remarks came after US designate Secretary of State Colin Powell criticized Iran’s human rights record in a statement before the senate Wednesday.
The reformist intellectuals were handed heavy prison sentences for having attended the conference described by the hardliners as “un-Islamic and anti-revolution.
The Islamic Revolution Court sentenced a top newspaper editor to 10 years' jail and five years' internal exile last weekend and gave other activists between four and ten year sentences.
Assefi counterattacked by accusing the US of human rights abuse.
"How does the US administration, the main supporter of the Zionist regime and also the biggest violator of the human rights in the world, allow itself to express statements on the status of human rights in Iran," he said.
US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher had called on Iran Wednesday to "remedy these unjust convictions and to carefully review other cases of unjust imprisonment."
IRNA said that Germany and the European Union have already issued public statements expressing concern about the verdicts imposed by Iran's Islamic Revolution Court the reform activists.
The UN Human Rights Commission last year drew attention to human rights in Iran after it issued a report accusing the Islamic state of violating conventions of human rights.
The US and Iran severed diplomatic relations in 1980 following the Islamic revolution, and Washington imposed an oil embargo on Tehran – Albawba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
