The Imam said[1]:

"(...) Where were the human rights specialists when the dissidents' feet were cut off in Iranian torture chambers or when the Shah himself was shooting people with a machine gun from a helicopter?(...) Despite all of this, we have still reduced their prison sentences and, except for those who have killed or tortured people, we have approved some sentence reductions.

The Imam added:

"Those who play the human rights game strategize and their call for human rights is in the interest of big capitalist countries to the detriment of small countries. They exaggerate the execution of traitors. How is it that those who believe that the execution of Elqanian (a wealthy member of the Iranian Jewish community executed on May 9,1979), who has been a traitor to our country and our people for years and has helped Zionism, is a human rights violation said nothing when Motahari (an Islamist ideologue close to Khomeini, assassinated on May 2nd, 1979) became a martyr? They have to know that if our people punished a prime minister who betrayed the people for thirteen years for his actions, it will also punish Bakhtiar, Sharif Emami and Azhari for their misdeeds."