“Western human rights display a double standard on Gaza, besieging Palestinians and blocking essentials like water, bread, and medicine,” Hojat-ol-Islam Mohsen Araki, a member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, said while addressing the 8th International Conference on American Human Rights from the Perspective of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, on Tuesday.

“Tens of children are being killed every day, aren’t they humans?” he asked, adding that these examples illustrate the contradictions within Western human rights.

The remarks come as Israeli attacks, supported by the US and other Western states, have killed at least 37,900 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since October last year.

The Israeli aggression has also ruined large swaths of Gaza, displacing almost all of its 2.3 million population.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Araki said that in the Western system, human rights are defined by rulers' perspectives, with sovereignty and rights being shaped by wealth, and with capitalists controlling media and governance.

This structure silences the voices of ordinary people, he added.

In the Islamic framework, however, governance is grounded in rights, with the government itself unable to define or create rights independent of divine laws, he said, adding that the rights have been established by God and His friends and we are all responsible before God.

Western governance finds truth incompatible; for instance, they censor the Islamic Revolution Leader’s messages, even forbidding his Hajj message from media, the cleric said.

Offering an example, Araki said that once the UK daily The Guardian had published the Leader’s message following negotiations, but the daily was then penalized and pledged not to repeat such actions.

In the West, women are seen as tools for sexual exploitation, as Westerners employ women for men’s sexual satisfaction, and this is why they are against the promotion of hijab, Araki said elsewhere.

Western governments uphold nudity as a woman's right but do not recognize hijab as such, he added.