From the beginning of the leadership of the Islamic Revolution in 1989 to the end of 2014, out of 1,423 speeches and 1,226 messages, Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei addressed the issue of human rights 235 times and has used the term “human rights” more than 500 times. In the view of the Supreme Leader, the West, Europe and the international community are not honest about their claim to defend human rights. Because merely making claims would not prove honesty, and in many cases, they have violated human rights. He considers this claim as a deception and a lie by which these governments seek to colonize and abuse other countries. In his view, they have no belief in human rights, humanity and the fight against terrorism and the protection of the rights of nations. Also, they do not respect human beings – even their own nations – and support terrorism and repeated acts of violating human rights around the world.

 

They despise the will, the right to choose, and the freedom of nations, and are, in essence, not human rights advocators, but corporations, trusts, international cartels, big American capitalists, as well as the most authoritarian rulers in the world and the Middle East. The superpowers have built their powers based on injustice and coercion, and by the vast propaganda tools at their disposal, have devalued issues such as human rights, justice, humanity, youth and women while distorting the concepts of good and bad.

 

Due to their actions, billions of people around the world are dying under the pressure of this false system. Ayatollah Khamenei believes that those who claim to defend human rights and lead the world and humanity should not be expected to be good and do good. The superpowers, in critical conditions, have used organizations such as the United Nations, the Security Council and the European Union for their advantage. They justify their oppression, murder and discrimination under the pretexts of defending “human rights,” “human values” and the like, and despite verbally supporting human rights, they do not act upon this concept. This is the worst kind of oppression against humanity; because the worst kind of domination of oppression is when it dominates the world in the name of justice and truth. Today, the leaders of the American regime are seeking to expand their hegemony over the world, and this expansionism has caused the greatest harm to humanity and the backwardness of Asia and Africa.

 

Colonization of countries for many years has led to the exploitation of oil reserves and other natural resources, the destruction of culture, and the failure of colonial countries in gaining progress or scientific accomplishments. Also, the issues of human rights and peace have suffered a severe blow from colonization. Their work is based on concealing the truth.

 

Human Rights Violations Committed by Claimants of Human Rights in Iran

 

Violating human rights by Western colonialists in Iran dates back to the Pahlavi period. In this regard, Ayatollah Khamenei has paid special attention to some measures taken by Westerners in Iran including the establishment of and strengthening the dictatorial regime of Reza Khan, not condemning the hijab ban law in Iran and encouraging Reza Shah to continue such a policy, giving Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi unwavering support in establishing a government, launching the 1953 coup d’état and the killings of innocent people during the events of June 1963 and September and November 1978 as well as the people of Varamin’s demonstrations, and not showing any objection to the actions of SAVAK.

 

Human Rights Violations Committed by Human Rights Claimants in Islamic Countries

 

Ayatollah Khamenei believes that Western countries and international human rights organizations have failed to prevent and oppose the violation of Muslim rights in the world, which is a common concern of all Islamic countries. The most important case of human rights violation in Islamic countries, which has been continued for more than half a century, is the countless tortures and killings of Palestinians and residents of southern Lebanon by racist Zionist Israel. Numerous bombings of southern Lebanon and Palestinian cities such as Gaza, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin and al-Khalil and being responsible for the Qana, Dir Yasin, Sabra and Shatila massacres, attacking the al-Aqsa Mosque, the first qiblah of Muslims, and assassinating and abducting the Palestinian and Lebanese officials such as Sayyed Abbas Mousavi, Shaykh Ahmad Yasin, Fathi Shaqaqi, Rantisi and Imam Musa al-Sadr are often justified by European countries, the United States and international organizations. Given such actions of the Zionist regime, equipping the usurping Zionist government with nuclear weapons would be one of the most important violations of world peace.

 

Human Rights Violations Committed by Human Rights Claimants in the West and the United States

 

According to Ayatollah Khamenei, although the United States and European countries, as well as other human rights defenders, are members of the United Nations Human Rights Council and should respect human rights more than other countries, they do not respect the rights of their own people; therefore, those who do not respect the rights of their people are not expected to protect the rights of other countries. In his view, the most important reason for this phenomenon lies with the irrational, unjust and completely undemocratic structure and mechanism of the United Nations Security Council, based on which the countries that claim to defend human rights have been able to commit numerous human rights violations such as military intervention, by the means of force and misusing the honourable concepts like human rights. Some examples of human rights violations in Western countries can be seen in Ayatollah Khamenei’s remarks: starting two World Wars, harassing, humiliating and not supporting the Muslim minority in Europe, fighting against the Hijab in Europe despite pretending to call for freedom- a movement which in France and some other European countries was called the “headscarf war” – the events in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the bloody and brutal repression of Muslims in Srebrenica and Sarajevo – in the heart of the so-called civilized Europe – the civil wars in Nagorno-Karabakh and the Caucasus region, poverty and hunger, homelessness and lack of medicine in civilized and developed countries, insulting and humiliating the blacks, labours and the poor people in the United States, the inability of the United States to establish justice, the racial discrimination against the blacks in this country, the poor condition of the United States prisons like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, high rates of homicide and crimes in the United States, killing and burning the Davidians in Texas in 1993, appalling spiritual poverty and moral deprivation, destructing the institution of family, youth suicide and delinquency, committing homicide by children since the age of twelve to thirteen in the United States, massacring the indigenous people – the Native Americans – and exploiting millions of Africans and Indians.

 

Western Countries and International Organizations Oppose Iran because of Human Rights

 

The Westerners, who frequently commit violations of human rights, consider themselves responsible for the protection and development of human rights in the world and therefore accuse Iran of violating human rights. The main accusations that Ayatollah Khamenei referred to and responded in his statements are as follows: exporting the Revolution, pursuing regressive policies, being anti-democratic, being a reactionary republic that follows the outdated principles, opposing democracy and not holding a free election, supporting terrorism, fanaticism and fundamentalism, disregarding human rights especially women’s rights, opposing peace and advocating war, financing and providing weapons for Islamic movements, and pursuing nuclear and chemical weapons.

 

Defending human rights, Ayatollah Khamenei refutes the allegations made by the so-called advocators of human rights.

 

From his point of view, the reasons for the confrontation between Western states and the international community with Iran can be summarized as follows:

 

First: Calling for following the pure Islamic teachings conveyed by Prophet Muhammad (s), defending Islam, the Holy Quran and the Prophet (s) as well as other divine prophets, and confronting the acts of sacrilege committed against such sacred personalities such as the case of the author of the blasphemous book “Satanic Verses”;

 

Second: Religion is not separate from the politics and Islamic foundation of the Islamic Republic.

 

Third: The political independence of this system, which means that it does not give in to the usual coercions of the superpowers and determines to confront their intrusion.

 

Fourth: The specific solution of the Islamic Republic on the issue of Palestine, that is to say, the dissolution of the occupying Zionist regime and the formation of a Palestinian state, which consists of the Palestinians only, and the coexistence of Muslims, Christians and Jews in Palestine.

 

Fifth: Spiritually and politically supporting all Islamic movements and condemning the act of putting pressure on Muslims everywhere in the world, especially Palestine;

 

Sixth: Making efforts to awaken the Islamic Ummah and establish unity and the political and economic cooperation between the governments and Islamic countries, and taking steps towards reinforcing the authority of the Muslim nations through the framework of the “Great Islamic Ummah.”

 

Seventh: Rejecting the imposed culture of the West, to which Western governments, with narrow-mindedness and prejudice, intend to force all the nations of the world to submit, and insisting on the revival of Islamic culture in Muslim countries;

 

Eighth: Fighting against corruption and promiscuity which has been or is going to be recognized by some Western governments, especially the United States and the United Kingdom, as for decades they have been planning and trying to bring various forms of this corruption to Islamic countries; Ninth: The existence of very important domestic problems and issues in Western countries which try to cover up these problems.

 

Explaining the Situation of Human Rights in Iran

 

1) Capital Punishment:

From the point of view of the Supreme Leader, in the Islamic society, the most significant divine command after believing in Islam is to observe divine boundaries by which the government and the system of the Islamic Republic can reach dignity and prosperity. Such boundaries would be crystallized in the society through the laws approved by the Guardian Council. On the other hand, one of the frequent accusations levelled against the Islamic Republic of Iran by the international community is the implementation of the limits sanctioned by God.

 

He believes that “human rights are realized through the framework of the Islamic justice and Islamic rules and the judicial system should carefully consider the issue of human rights based on the Islamic criteria, not the false standards and norms that the West offers today.” In the view of Ayatollah Khamenei, many executions carried out in Iran are related to drug traffickers, which due to the harmful effects of drugs in society, even executing them for only one time is not enough and such a penalty does not fall under the category of violating human rights.

 

2) Women’s Rights:

From the Supreme Leader’s point of view, women’s rights are very important because they constitute half of the people in every society, the consistency of life depends on them, and they have significant responsibilities such as reproduction and upbringing of children. Islam’s view of women is based on the facts of the universe and the nature of women and their specific responsibilities. Also, it contributes to women’s perfection.

 

On the other hand, the unequal and unbalanced attitude of the West towards women has led it to commit excess and neglect in the field of understanding the nature of women and the way of dealing with them. This is rooted in an irrational movement that is based on ignorance and does not rely on divine traditions and the women’s instinct.

 

Stating that it is only recently that the Western world has begun reviving women’s rights and hence it tries to make up for such negligence by raising false challenges, Ayatollah Khamenei believes that one the one hand the Western countries, due to not granting women the right to vote, education and possession, are violating women’s rights in the pre-modern era, and one the other hand, they violate the rights of women in the contemporary era because they try to make women look like men by engaging them in social affairs and providing all the necessary grounds for their deviation which results in their sexual exploitation and seek to turn this issue into a dominant discourse.

 

Ayatollah Khamenei’s analysis of the history of civilization in Europe is that the European and Western pattern of woman originated from the ancient Roman and Greek pattern based on which the woman is a means for the fulfillment of men’s desires, a user of cosmetics in the public places, a follower of fashion, and the taboo around sexual issues between the two genders is broken.

 

While inviting the women of the Islamic society to pay attention to the role and position of Imam Khomeini (ra) in introducing Lady Fatimah al-Zahra (s) and other early female figures of the early days of Islam as well as reviving women’s rights, Ayatollah Khamenei believes that the Islamic Revolution dispelled misconceptions about women; because it caused them to find their true personality to a large extent and engage in various social arenas.

 

Based on his view, human freedom in the school of liberalism does not include religion and God, and therefore liberalism never considers the root of freedom to be divine, whereas from the Islamic point of view, freedom has a divine origin and the struggle for freedom is a divine duty.

 

Referring to the lack of freedom of expression, the existence of dictatorship, disregarding the people’s vote, corruption, oppression and discrimination, and abusing the statesmen and courtiers in the Pahlavi period, Ayatollah Khamenei explains the situation of freedom of speech and press in Iran and states that freedom and democracy of the Islamic Republic are peerless among all countries of the region, and the system of the Islamic Republic is tolerant of the dissent. The existence of such freedom has caused the people and even religious minorities of Iran to speak about and sharply criticize the affairs of the country in the press and even public media such as radio and television. Moreover, the reason that some people try to challenge the freedom of the press in Iran lies with their opposition to Islam, independence, national freedom and moral purity through which they seek to pave the way for foreign interference and the United States domination of Iran.

 

Ayatollah Khamenei considers the great scourge of the contemporary world to be “international tyranny” and “global dictatorship,” both of which are the highest levels of international and global arrogance and an obstacle to the observance of human rights. According to him, “colonialism” began in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and turned into the “new colonialism” in the twentieth century, and today, in the heyday of arrogant powers, it has become “global arrogance.”

 

In the view of Ayatollah Khamenei, following Islam provides the solution for fighting arrogance and realizing human rights. Islam and its precious guidelines and lessons fill the spiritual vacuum of human life and help him to deal with great social and individual troubles and confusions created by the tyrants and oppressors of the world.

 

Reference: Journal of Islamic Revolution Studies. Vol 14, No 48, Spring 2017, Pp 175-196.

Archive of Ayatollah Khamenei