“France’s heavy-handed crackdown on peaceful protesters proves the extent of its disregard for human rights,” Secretary General of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights Kazem Gharibabadi said in a post on his Twitter account.
He said the French government violently silences the voice of dissent, asking, “Double standards vis-à-vis human rights have taken a new turn or what?”
Widespread protests started in the French capital on Friday in the wake of a deadly shooting in Paris by a “racist” gunman. The shooting attack claimed three lives at a Kurdish cultural center and a nearby café.
It also drew Kurdish groups and their supporters onto the streets of Paris, with some of the protesters waving flags of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is viewed as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies.
The French police arrested a 69-year-old suspect who the authorities said had recently been freed from detention while awaiting trial for a saber attack on a migrant camp in the capital last year, Press TV reported.