Two years ago, the Islamic republic called protesters in Tehran “rioters; now it is calling rioters in London “protesters.”
The state media, which downplayed the disorders in Tehran two years ago, is now giving huge coverage to the disorders in London.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast asked the UK government “to prevent the use of violence by the police and to engage in dialogue with the protesters and examine their demands in order to restore calm.”
That was very much like what many foreign governments said to Iran two years ago. At that time, Mehman-Parast said such remarks amounted to meddling in Iran’s internal affairs and violated international law.
Majlis Deputy Hossain Ebrahimi announced Tuesday that Iran is prepared to send a human rights delegation to London. “We ask the government of Britain and those in charge of the [UK] embassy in Tehran to pave the way for the presence of human rights experts in that country without making false excuses,” Ebrahimi said. He said Iran’s investigators would interview Britain’s “political prisoners” and prepare a report on their treatment.
Deputy Mohammad-Karim Abedi, deputy chairman of the Majlis Human Rights Committee, said, “The British regime is using horses and dogs to deal with people protesting.… They have arrested 100 young people. [Actually, 450 people had been arrested when he spoke.] These big crimes have been ignored by the international community.”
During the London protests of the spring against education budget cutbacks, government officials in Iran said the English protesters wished to topple the UK government and create a new regime modeled after the Islamic Republic.
Meanwhile, Brigadier General Masud Jazayeri, the spokesman for Iran’s military, said the US government was terrified that the uprisings in the Arab world would spread to American cities. He said the US government is deploying tens of thousands of troops to American cities to contain unrest.
Jazayeri also said that the inability of the US government pay the debt it owes has tipped the economy into recession. Actually, the United States has never missed a debt payment in 222 years of constitutional government.
