Iran has dismissed the recent court verdict exonerating the US security guard who killed unarmed African American teenager Trayvon Martin as a blatant example of racial discrimination.
“The acquittal of the murderer of the teenage African American once again clearly demonstrated the unwritten but systematic racial discrimination against racial, religious and ethnic minorities in US society,” said Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Araqchi on Wednesday during a press conference.
The court ruling has also seriously put under question the fairness of the judicial process in the United States, Araqchi noted.
“Several months on since a probe was launched [into the murder], the public opinion in the US and across the world expects transparency, an accurate and fair judicial investigation [into the case], with due regard to human rights principles for American citizens and a ban on discrimination against minorities in the country,” he said.
The public views the court ruling as a follow-up to similar incidents such as the suspicious murder of the grandson of former African American Muslim leader Malcolm X, which the US judicial system failed to probe, Araqchi stated.
He said Tehran advises the US government and its judiciary to “seriously abide by” the country’s international and human rights obligations, “particularly with respect to minorities,” and to take practical steps to put an end to its discriminatory conduct.
The contentious verdict on the case in the US was issued Saturday night after three weeks of testimony and 16 hours of jury deliberations, rejecting the prosecution’s contention that George Zimmerman, a former volunteer neighborhood guard, had deliberately followed Martin as a suspected criminal and shot him to death.
Zimmerman claimed the fatal shooting, which took place on February 26, 2012, in a small Florida town, was in self-defense.
The controversial ruling sparked angry protest rallies across the US, during which protesters burned American flags and held signs reading, “We are all Trayvon Martin,” among other slogans.
Various forms of discrimination have remained particularly high and widespread against African Americans across the US, long after the nation’s Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, in which open slavery and discrimination against black people were “officially” abolished.
