Speaking before the beginning of his dars al-kharij (post-graduate) jurisprudence course, Ayatollah Ali-Akbar Rashad, the president and founder of the Islamic Institute for Culture and Thought, and the chairman of the Policy Council of Islamic Seminaries of Tehran Province, referred to the current developments in the United States and said, “The time has come for the collapse of the oppressive and empty American empire.”
Condemning the recent crimes in the United States, he added, “These crimes are the nature of the usurping, criminal, violent and criminal government of the United States and some want to reduce this crime to the level of police violence.”
He asked a question, “Is there an American police force outside the United States that is committing so many acts of violence, usurpation, looting and massacres all over the world? During its despicable and filthy lifetime, the American government has committed hundreds of times more crimes in the streets of the United States than in the United States today.”
Ayatollah Rashad noted that news restrictions which exist in the United States didn’t properly reflect the news and crimes taking place in the country and added, “Some of the crimes and incidents that have been published, including the murder of the oppressed black man [George Floyd], the taking and throwing of an infant from his mother’s arms, the beating of people, etc., are very heartbreaking and sad.”
Emphasizing that the United States is the biggest human rights violator in the world, His Eminence said, The United States is one of the few countries in the world that is campaigning to deceive other countries in the world under various pretexts, including the defence of human rights, and it commits thousands of crimes, such as the massacre of defenceless people in those countries.”
He continued, “However if a smuggler or a murderer is punished and executed, his cry for human rights will deafen the ears of the sky. In the past two weeks, have any of the countries which claim to defend human rights condemned the crimes committed in the United States? The leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom didn’t have the slightest objection to this crime and tragedy, and some even endorsed Trump’s campaign.”
Ayatollah Rashad added, “The same president who said he will build a wall on the United States-Mexico border to protect the Americans, we saw on Friday [June 5th] how he built a wall around the White House to protect himself and the White House against the American people. The anti-human behavior of the United States is a sign of the decline of the empty American empire.”
It should be noted that George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-the American man, who was killed in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25, 2020, after allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill at a market.
While Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on a city street during an arrest, Derek Chauvin, a white the American Minneapolis police officer, kept his knee on the right side of Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. According to the criminal complaint against Chauvin, 2 minutes and 53 seconds of that time occurred after Floyd became unresponsive.
After Floyd’s death, demonstrations and protests in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area were initially peaceful on May 26, and later that day became violent as a police precinct and two stores were set on fire, and many stores were looted and damaged.
Some demonstrators skirmished with police, who fired tear gas and rubber bullets. Additional protests developed in over 200 cities throughout all 50 states in the United States as well as internationally.
