Critics slam UN after it lowers flag to half-staff in honor of 'mass murderer' Iranian president

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The United Nations flag was lowered to half-staff Tuesday in honor of the late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash Monday.

Raisi, nicknamed the "Butcher of Tehran" for his oversight of mass executions of political prisoners in 1988, died along with Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and other Iranian officials who were in the helicopter when it crashed in a mountainous region to the country's northwest. Several U.N. member nations have offered condolences to the Iranian regime – a show of support for the state sponsor of terror that has outraged human rights activists and Iran hawks.

"One might say this sign of U.N. respect for mass murderers and terrorist executioners is not a surprise," said Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, and president of Human Rights Voices.

"The U.N. Security Council or General Assembly has refused to condemn the terrorist organization Hamas and its October 7th atrocities, orchestrated through Tehran. Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism, but the U.N. has no definition of terrorism because Islamic states claim killing Jews and other targets, including Americans, isn't terror," Bayefsky said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

UN HOLDS MOMENT OF SILENCE FOR ‘BUTCHER OF TEHRAN’