Thaindian News

TEHRAN (BNO NEWS) — A senior Iranian lawmaker on Wednesday warned that it is considering to close the British embassy in Tehran to protest the “violent crackdown” on British citizens, referring to riots which have taken place in London and other cities since Saturday.

Iranian lawmakers have previously condemned the events in England as violations of human rights and called on the United Nations to to adopt preventive measures against the “oppression” and “violent crackdown on protesters.”

“This is a blatant violation of human rights,” Mahmoud Ahmadi Bighash, a member of the Parliamentarian Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy, said on Wednesday when referring to the shooting death of 29-year-old Mark Duggan. He was killed by police on Thursday when they attempted to arrest him.

The arrest led to riots and widespread looting in the Tottenham area of London on Saturday and soon escalated and spread to other parts of England in the following days, mainly because youth and criminal opportunists joined in and not to protest the police shooting.

Bighash said the Iranian parliament will seriously consider to shut down the British embassy in Tehran if the ‘violent crackdown’ continues, the state-funded Press TV reported. He also called on Iran’s Foreign Ministry to summon the British charge d’affairs in Tehran as soon as possible to explain the shooting death of Duggan.

The Iranian lawmaker added that, despite the economic crisis, Britain is engaged in military intervention in Afghanistan and Libya and ‘violated their rights at the U.S. and Israel’s command.’ Bighash also expressed regrets that the funds being used “to slaughter the people” in the Middle East are not being used to improve the living of British people.

The riots in England have so far left four people killed and more than 100 others injured, most of them police officers in London. Around 1,000 people have also been arrested in cities such as London, Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool.