TEHRAN – Head of the Iranian Judiciary's High Council for Human Rights has reacted to an anti-Iran resolution adopted by the European Parliament, saying those who have prevented innocent children from accessing medicine are not even justified to talk about “animal rights”.

Bagheri-Kani said in remarks on Friday that the European countries are now involved in killing dozens of sick Iranian children due to their targeted efforts to prevent Iranian children from accessing medicine.

“Therefore, they are not in a position to lecture about human rights,” Bagheri-Kani added, according to ISNA.

The European Parliament issued the resolution on Thursday. It deals with the detention and recent executions of a number of nationals on convictions ranging from espionage to murder and “corruption on earth”, a term used to describe capital crimes within the Islamic Republic’s judicial system.

The resolution “asks all EU member states to jointly issue public statements and undertake diplomatic initiatives to monitor unfair trials and visit prisons” where Iranian convicts holding European citizenship are serving time.

It also demanded “targeted EU measures against Iranian officials who have committed serious human rights violations.”

Bagheri-Kani said it is a modern deception when “you block the patients from getting access to medicine, while shedding crocodile tears because a sentence has been carried out for a criminal.”

“By taking a nation’s health and livelihood hostage with the goal of imposing their illegitimate demands, the Europeans have set a new record in modern savagery,” he added.

The official warned European countries over threatening to sanction Iran, saying if the sanctions are activated, certain European governments will lose their credibility since many officials in Europe have played a crucial part in violating the Iranian nation’s rights.

In its resolution, the European Parliament also condemned Iran over the execution of Ruhollah Zam, the administrator of a notorious counterrevolutionary website, who had been convicted of “corruption on earth”.

Zam, the operator behind the Amad News website and Telegram channel, was executed on December 12.

It came days after the Supreme Court upheld Zam’s death sentence.

“The Supreme Court has considered this case and the ruling issued by the Islamic Revolution Court has been approved by the Supreme Court,” Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said earlier this month.

Earlier this year, Esmaili announced that Zam was charged with “corruption on the earth”. 

Back in October 2019, Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) announced that Zam had been arrested during a complicated intelligence operation.

Zam launched Amad News in 2015. The channel frequently posted fake news stories and called for violence with the aim of overthrowing the Islamic Republic system.

During the protest rallies in Iran in December 2018, he urged the people to take arms against the government.

In its statement, the IRGC said it lured Zam into Iran using “clever, multidimensional and innovative tricks”, which even deceived foreign intelligence agencies.

The IRGC also said the French intelligence service was behind Zam’s activities, which were also backed by the U.S. and the Zionist regime’s spy services.

In his second trial in February, Zam said he had the highest security protection after French President Emmanuel Macron.

“The heaviest French security protection after Macron was for me,” Zam told the court.

MH/PA