TEHRAN – Iran’s Judiciary chief said on Monday that human rights accusations against Iran are politically motivated as he drew a contrast between the Western countries’ approach toward the issue of human rights in Iran and Saudi Arabia

Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani said Saudi Arabia is a country which has not seen an election in its history and has also been supporting terrorist groups over the last decades but the West accuses Iran of breaching the rights of people.

The terrorist activities by “Daesh and al-Qaeda are done with the support of the Saudi regime” but Iran is named “violator of human rights”, he lamented.

The Judiciary chief also lamented the West’s silence toward the confirmation of death sentence against pro-democracy cleric Sheikh Nimr by the Saudi Supreme Court.

“Saudi Arabia has detained and tortured a liberal-minded cleric and now it is insisting on enforcing the death verdict against him and nobody objects.”

However, he said, if a Monafiq (hypocrite) carries out a bomb blast and kills a number of people in Iran and a court issues a death sentence against him the West creates a commotion and accuses Iran of human rights violation.

But he said the judicial system in Iran will not give in to pressure in implementing Sharia law. “We will never submit to a kind of human rights that the Westerners interpret for us.”

------Mishandling of the Mina stampede-----

Larijani also called the Saudi attacks on Yemenis another example of human rights which is backed by the West.

“Isn’t the cruel killing in Yemen by Saudi Arabia a human rights issue,” Larijani asked.

The Judiciary chief also said the Saudi handling of the Mina disaster in which about 4600 pilgrims, including 460 Iranians, were killed as another concrete example of human rights violation. He said Saudi Arabia even does not cooperate to determine the fate of missing pilgrims.