3 decades on, Iran waiting for apology from US over downing of passenger plane
Yusef Jalali
Press TV, Tehran
Every year in late June and early July, Iranian activists get together to commemorate what they call the American Human Rights Week to recount instances of US rights abuses in Iran.
The Week-long occasion marks a series of tragic incidents all falling within the same time frame, killing hundreds of Iranians in the early years after the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Rights activists say in all of those instances, the footprints of the US can be traced.
One of the most tragic incidents was the 1988 shooting down of an Iranian airliner by the US navy, which killed all of the 290 people on board the doomed plane.
More than three decades on and Iran is still waiting for an apology from Washington. Rights activists believe the US has not abandoned its double standards regarding human rights.
The American Human Rights week also marks the 1981 bombing of the headquarters of Iran's Islamic Republic party, carried out by the formidable Mojahedin-e Khalq terrorist organization, known as the MKO.
Seventy three leading officials, including the then Justice Chief, Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti were killed in the blast.
The Islamic Republic says the MKO is responsible for killing 12,000 Iranians in terror attacks. In 2012, the US and Europe delisted the MKO as a terrorist entity and since then, they have been taking part in the terror group's annual summits in Paris.
The 1987 chemical bombardment of Iran's city of Sardasht is another incident that falls on the same period in the Iranian calendar.
Iraq's chemical weapons were reportedly produced using materials supplied by the US and other Western countries.
Activists say Washington has so far shrugged off its crimes in Iran, and that's why they mark the American Human Rights Week every year to take a jab at the US and question its selective approach to human rights.
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