In Iran new year's address, Khamenei questions Holocaust
During his Nowruz adress, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei accused Western countries of hypocrisy in criticizing Iran of restricting free expression citing that in certain European countries denying the holocaust is illegal.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, delivering his annual Persian New Year’s address, struck a defensive tone about Iran’s renewed international engagement, warning that Iran has to develop its internal economic and cultural resources as a bulwark against outside influences, and cannot count on the West for sanctions relief.
“A nation that is not strong will be oppressed," Khamenei, 74, speaking from his hometown of Mashhad on the Nowruz holiday, said Friday. Iran should not count on "when the enemy will lift the sanctions," he warned.
In the most controversial of his remarks Friday, Khamenei said the West accuses Iran of restricting free expression, but in many parts of Europe and the West, Holocaust denial is against the law.
“Expressing opinion about the Holocaust, or casting doubt on it, is one of the greatest sins in the West,” Khamenei said. “They prevent this, arrest the doubters, try them while claiming to be a free country.”
