WORLD / MID-EAST
US sanctions deprive Iranian women of life-saving medicine: Iranian spokesman
Published: Oct 12, 2022 10:03 PM
Iran's government spokesman said on Tuesday that the US sanctions which deprived Iran of raw materials needed for producing life-saving medicine exposed its hypocrisy in claiming to be advocating for Iranian women in the wake of Mahsa Amini's death.

Ali Bahadori Jahromi's remarks came during a weekly press conference in Tehran, according to official news agency IRNA.

Speaking of recent "meddlesome" remarks and measures taken by some Western countries following the death of Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman, Jahromi said these moves aimed at "inciting riots" in Iran in the guise of supporting the country's women and revealed these countries' double standards.

Over the past few weeks, "we have witnessed double-standard behaviors by [some] Western states," he said, adding the "inhumane" Western measures still deny Iranians access to essential medicines.

Jahromi said the US withdrawal from a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers and reimposed sanctions on Iran had made the Iranian government more determined to defend its people's rights and remove the sanctions.

Protests over Amini's death, who died in a Tehran hospital a few days ­after collapsing at a police station, erupted across Iran, first in her native province of Kurdestan before spreading to several other cities including the capital.

The Iranian Legal Medicine Organization said on Friday that Amini's death was not a result of alleged blows to her head or vital organs, but an illness, semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported.

The US sanctions against Iran have intensified since 2018, the year when Washington pulled out of the nuclear deal. Although the US claims that humanitarian items, including medicine and foodstuff, are not included in the sanctions list, its embargoes on Iran's oil exports and banking sector have, in practice, prevented the country from importing such goods.