“This incident was very grievous and horrible, and its news and pictures hurt the hearts of every human,” Ayatollah Amoli Larijani said, addressing an Expediency Council meeting in Tehran on Saturday.
He further deplored the double-standard approach of the West’s mainstream media to terrorism and said some of them, like the British government’s media outlet (BBC), even refused to refer to the attack as a terrorist one.
“Those who declare a knifing incident in the UK a terrorist attack, are turning a blind eye on the brutal massacre of 49 innocent Muslims,” the cleric went on to say.
Ayatollah Amoli Larijani further called on Muslim nations to take a strong position on these double standards in their relations with Western countries.
At least one gunman killed 49 people and wounded more than 40 during Friday prayers at two New Zealand mosques in the country’s worst ever mass shooting, which Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern condemned as terrorism.
A gunman broadcast livestream footage on Facebook of the attack on one mosque in the city of Christchurch, mirroring the carnage played out in video games, after publishing a “manifesto” in which he denounced immigrants, calling them “invaders”.
New Zealand was placed on its highest security threat level, Ardern said, adding that “this can now only be described as a terrorist attack”.