Iran takes hard line on executions despite EU criticism

Feb 6, 2010, 0:06 GMT

Munich - Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Saturday rejected European Union demands for a halt to the execution of opposition demonstrators in his country, saying that the condemned people were criminals.

On Friday, the EU's foreign-policy director, Catherine Ashton, urged Iran to halt all executions, and in particular the judicial killing of nine opposition demonstrators who were condemned to death earlier in the week.

Most Iranians accepted the result of the June presidential election, 'except very few people who started violations, who did crimes, who burned houses and buses and damaged anything in the streets. Are you tolerant in your countries to violations and crimes?' Mottaki asked the prestigious Munich Security Conference.

'When crime happens, that is not protest. Protest yes, but violation and crimes nobody will allow,' Mottaki said during a midnight debate with Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt.

On Friday, Ashton issued a statement calling on Iran to stop all executions and accusing it of intimidating protestors.

Bildt backed up that call, asking Mottaki to promise that the nine condemned people would not be executed before the anniversary celebrations of Iran's revolution, set for Thursday, as part of a plan to overawe government critics.

'There are widespread beliefs that there is the intention to execute them before the anniversary to prevent demonstrations ... That would clearly have the most detrimental effect on the other aspects of the (EU-Iran) relationship,' Bildt said.

But Mottaki waved away those comments, insisting that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won the election by some 11 million votes.

That remark elicited boos and hisses from some in the audience, who believe that the election was rigged.

Mottaki then pointed out that the Iranian election had seen a turnout of some 85 per cent, while last year's elections to the European Parliament saw turnout of under 25 per cent in some EU member states.

'We cannot have our own definitions, such as first- and second-class democracy,' he said.