Supreme Leader rebukes west over claims on defending human rights while hosting terrorists

The members of the Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorist group are walking free in France and other European countries, Ayatollah Khamenei said on Monday, addressing a meeting with the chief and officials of Iran’s Judiciary.

“The French government and others shamelessly preach human rights despite hosting them (terrorists), supporting them, and even giving them the podium in their national parliaments,” the Leader said. “That is to say, the brazenness of these Westerners is really an extraordinary and strange thing.”

The Leader also marked the assassination of Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, who was the head of Supreme Judicial Council at the time of his martyrdom in a bombing carried out by the MKO in Tehran on June 28, 1981.

He said the MKO committed a great crime against the Iranian nation by assassinating “this prominent figure” along with 70 other Iranian figures on this day forty years ago.

Ayatollah Khamenei also thanked Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raeisi for bringing about a great change to the Judiciary since he assumed office more than two years ago.

“In these two years and a few months that he was in charge of the Judiciary, he really worked hard, he strove, and good things were achieved in the Judiciary,” he said.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the Leader hailed the June 18 presidential election as “truly epic”, saying no one can take the magnificence of the election away from the country.

“Where in the world is it common to see that all the members of the opposition propaganda apparatus get actively involved to scare people away from voting in the election,” he noted.

“Attempts are made – they (the opposition) write letters and speak via the cyberspace – to deny the greatness of this election, but to no avail,” Ayatollah Khamenei maintained. “This effort is in vain. Analysts who had their eyes fixed on this election understand what has happened.”