US offers condolences over Iran chopper crash, blasts Raisi’s human rights record
German MP calls EU leaders’ condolence message a ‘mockery of brave fighters for human rights in Iran’; Swedish MEP: ‘Look the brave women and freedom fighters of Iran in the eye’
The United States on Monday offered its condolences over the deaths of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and the other members of their delegation killed in a helicopter crash over the weekend.
“As Iran selects a new president, we reaffirm our support for the Iranian people and their struggle for human rights and fundamental freedoms,” US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement, in an apparent swipe at the rights record of the deceased.
Explaining the decision to offer official condolences in a subsequent briefing, Miller said the US does not want to see anyone die under such circumstances.
However, he stressed that Raisi was a “brutal participant in the repression of the Iranian people for nearly four decades.”
“Some of the worst human rights abuses occurred during his tenure as president,” Miller added.
Iran asked the United States for assistance after the helicopter crash, Miller also revealed. “I’m not going to get into the details, but we were asked by the Iranian government for assistance,” he told reporters, saying the US was unable to do so, “largely for logistical reasons.”
Hours earlier, the head of the European Union and its foreign policy chief prompted outrage from some European politicians after expressing their own condolences over the death of Raisi.
The Iranian president was confirmed dead on Sunday after search and rescue teams found his crashed helicopter in a fog-shrouded western mountain region in the Islamic Republic.
“The EU expresses its sincere condolences for the death of President Raisi and Foreign Minister Abdollahian, as well as other members of their delegation and crew in a helicopter accident. Our thoughts go to the families,” EU Council President Charles Michel said in a statement on X.
Later, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell published a statement on X saying the EU “offers its condolences” after “the tragic helicopter crash on Sunday.”
The messages provoked outrage from politicians and elected representatives on social media.
Swedish MEP David Lega asked Borrell on X: “Can you look the brave women and freedom fighters of Iran in the eye ever again? Can you look Floderus’s or Djalali’s families in the eye ever again? I can. Shame on you.”
In 2017, Swede Ahmadreza Djalali was sentenced to death in Iran on espionage charges, which his family says are utterly false.
In April 2022, Iran arrested Johan Floderus, a Swede working for the EU’s diplomatic service, as he was returning from a trip to Iran with friends. He faces the death penalty on spying charges.
Belgium’s former migration minister Theo Francken denounced the “European condolences for the death of a butcher and cruel mass murderer,” adding: “You don’t speak in my name.”
The day before, the EU had activated its satellite mapping system to help Iran locate the helicopter.
Janez Lenarcic, the EU Commissioner for Crisis Management, announced on X on Sunday that the system had been activated and received criticism from other European politicians.
Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, a member of the German Free Democratic Party, said: “What a mockery of the brave fighters for human rights in Iran. I expect an explanation for this.”
Lenarcic said Monday that the act was “simply an expression of the most basic humanity.”
