By Adam Kredo
Iran’s foreign ministry on Friday criticized the acquittal of George Zimmerman and chastised the United States for widespread “racial discrimination.”
“The acquittal of the murderer of the teenage African American once again clearly demonstrated the unwritten, but systematic racial discrimination against racial, religious, and ethnic minorities in the US society,” Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Abbas Araqchi was quoted as saying by Iran’s state run Fars News Agency.
“The court ruling has also seriously put under question the fairness of the judicial process in the United States,” Fars reported Araqchi as saying.
Iranian officials said that Zimmerman’s trial for the murder of Trayvon Martin should have been conducted in a more “accurate and fair” manner.
“Several months on since a probe was launched [into the murder], the public opinion in the U.S. and across the world expect transparency, an accurate and fair judicial investigation into the case, with due regard to human rights principles for American citizens and a ban on discrimination against minorities in the country,” Araqchi said.
Fars reported that the Iranian “public views the court ruling as a follow-up to similar incidents such as the suspicious murder of the grandson of former African American Muslim leader Malcolm X, which the U.S. judicial system failed to probe,” according to the report.
Iran’s calls for justice came as a surprise to U.S. observers, who pointed out that the Iranian regime is notorious for beating opposition members, arresting journalists, stoning women to death, and publicly executing homosexual teenagers.
An Iranian woman, for instance, was ordered to be stoned to death in July 2010.
The regime also initiated a widespread crackdown on opposition forces in the lead up to its most recent elections, which international observers cited for being neither free nor fair. Political prisoners in Iran have even attempted to commit suicide as a result of their abusive treatment.