November 29 2013
The secretary of Iran’s Human Rights Council, Mohammad Javad Larijani, says the United States doesn’t allow Iranians to study there any more.
However, more than 8,000 Iranian nationals are enrolled at US universities this year and the number has been increasing in recent years. (See story above.)
Larijani, who is the brother of Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani and Judiciary Chairman Sadeq Larijani, said the West’s behavior toward Iran is a clear example of its violation of basic human rights.
“The western countries claim that human rights have a special place in their domestic and foreign policies, but in practice they behave in such a way that it shows this claim has no authenticity,” Larijani said in a meeting with the Swedish Foreign Ministry’s consular director general and his accompanying delegation in Tehran last Tuesday.
In reporting this meeting, the Fars news agency did not report how the Swedes responded.
Larijani described the US-led sanctions against Iran as cruel, and said the embargos are a clear violation of human rights and have grown so tough that the Western states don’t even allow Iranian university students to study in their countries.
This comment flew in the face of new statistics showing the number of Iranians studying in the United States has risen each year for two decades.
Larijani pointed to the West’s behavior towards Iran in the past and present, and said, “No one can deny that the Islamic Republic of Iran is the biggest and the only democracy in the Middle East, but you see how the westerners, especially the US, who consider themselves as supporters of human rights and advocates of the promotion of democracy, treat Iran, which is the hub of democracy in the region. They want to put our nation under the harshest pressures with different kinds of sanctions and discriminatory policies.”
He further warned the West against sheltering terrorist groups, cautioning that some European capitals have turned into heavens for terrorists.
