United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday called the religious leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran “hypocritical holy men,” who amassed a fortune while ordinary Iranians are suffering extreme hardship.
“Sometimes it seems the world has become desensitized to the regime’s authoritarianism at home and its campaigns of violence abroad, but the proud Iranian people are not staying silent about their government’s many abuses,” Pompeo said in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.
Pompeo added that the Iranian regime has “heartlessly repressed its own people’s human rights, dignity and fundamental freedoms.”
America’s top diplomat made the remarks in a week in which the Trump administration seeks to highlight religious freedom around the world and brings together faith leaders for a three-day summit in Washington, which ends Thursday.
Writing in an op-ed for USA Today on Tuesday, Pompeo slammed religious persecution in Iran making a case of Mohammad Salas, a member of the Iranian Gonabadi Sufi dervish community, a faith group viciously persecuted by the mullah regime.
Salas last month was convicted and sentenced to death on questionable charges following violent clashes between Iranian authorities and Gonabadi dervishes. He was allegedly tortured into a confession and hanged in the notorious Rajai Shahr Prison on June 18.
“Hundreds of Sufi Muslims in Iran remain imprisoned on account of their beliefs, with reports of several dying at the hands of Iran’s brutal security forces. The religious intolerance of the regime in Iran also applies to Christians, Jews, Sunnis, Baha’is, Zoroastrians, and other minority religious groups simply trying to practice their faiths,” Pompeo observed.
Despite talk of “moderation,” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s rise to power has changed nothing in regard to religious freedom in the country. In fact, the situation for minorities in Iran has steadily deteriorated under his leadership. Persecution, violence, and outright murder have only gotten worse under his tenure.
“We are asking every nation, every nation who is sick and tired of the Islamic Republic’s destructive behavior to join our pressure campaign. This especially goes for our allies in the Middle East and Europe, people who have themselves been terrorized by the violent regime’s activity for decades,” Pompeo concluded in his remarks on Sunday.
[Photo: TIME / YouTube ]