Honoring Mandela Day, Iran urges elimination of apartheid in Palestine

Honoring the International Nelson Mandela Day, Iran has urged the elimination of apartheid across the world, especially in Palestine.

On Tuesday, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kan'ani marked the day in a tweet that commemorated the South African icon as "the great hero of the fight against the apartheid" as well as "a friend of [Iran's] Revolution and the Islamic Republic."

"The world today is in need of Nelson Mandela's liberating thinking in [its efforts to] fight and eliminate apartheid across the world, especially in #Palestine," the tweet added.

South Africa was in the thrall of apartheid -- a system of extreme racial segregation of people -- for 46 years, between 1948 and 1994, under an all-white government that Mandela fiercely resisted.

On April 27, 1994, the country’s apartheid era ended and South Africans were finally allowed to cast their votes in the first free and democratic elections after years of heroic struggle led by the icon.

SS