TEHRAN – Iran said Sunday the U.S. is in no position to make claims about human rights or democracy, recounting the country’s support for political systems based on institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination, namely South Africa’s dismantled apartheid regime and the occupying regime of Israel.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said U.S. officials used to support the apartheid, which was enforced in South Africa from 1948 to 1994, and that the CIA assisted then all-white government of the country to arrest late anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela.

“There was a time the U.S. was backing the apartheid regime in South Africa, the CIA helped it arrest Mandela.

“Today, it is d strategic ally & supporter of the apartheid Zionist regime. The U.S. does not deserve to defend human rights & democracy. It does not believe in them at all,” he wrote in a twitter post.

In a recent meeting with hundreds of prominent Iranian women here, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said the Islamic Republic’s stance toward the hypocritical human rights advocates in the West is that of demand and being on the offensive rather than defense, because “the modernized West and its decadent culture are truly guilty in this regard and have committed a crime against women’s honor and dignity.”