Italy "strongly" rejects human rights violations and the oppression of women in Iran, foreign minister Antonio Tajani said in an interview on Tuesday - the day after he other top Italian officials sent condolences on the death of the country's hardline president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash.
«Our position is always the same: we continue to be against any violation of human rights, against the death penalty and against the lack of freedom for women," Tajani told Corriere della Sera daily.
"And we strongly believe so," Tajani said.
"Our condolences are independent of political judgment on Raisi’s actions," Tajani underlined.
Raisi, who was president since 2021, is infamous for the stricter enforcement of Iran's draconian hijab law and brutal crackdown on mass women's rights protests sparked by the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahasa Armini for allegedy wearing her headscarf incorrectly.
Raisi, a former prosector, has been accused of serving on an "execution committee" that sent thousands of political prisoners and regime opponents to their deaths in the late 1980s on the orders of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
