Iran's supreme leader is using his English-language Twitter feed to horn in on America's national debate over race relations, highlighting Monday's anniversary of the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee and tweeting #BlackLivesMatter and #Ferguson in support of protesters in New York and Missouri.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has hit hardest at the shooting death of unarmed black man Michael Brown in Missouri – even jabbing Americans for their devotion at Christmas time amid the "oppressed" in Ferguson, comparing the situation with that of Palestinians in Gaza.
"If Jesus were among us today, he wouldn't spare a second to fight the arrogants&support the oppressed," he wrote, using the hashtags #Ferguson and #Gaza.
Even when protests erupted after Brown's death, Khamenei jumped into the fray, tweeting on Aug. 17:
The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter popped up in the wake of the grand jury's decision Nov. 24 not to indict officer Darren Wilson in the case, as the
ayatollah ranted: "At events in #Ferguson US is fighting w its ppl. #BlackLivesMatter."
On Monday, Khamenei weighed in on the treatment of American Indians, tweeting about the 124th anniversary of the Seventh Cavalry Regiment's massacre of captured Lakota Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota.
"Western culture is an aggressive one. Wherever Westerners went, they destroyed local culture, history & language. #NativeLivesMatter,"
he tweeted.
Khamenei has been one of the virulent anti-American voices in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution overthrew U.S.-allied Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the
Los Angeles Times notes.
His Twitter profile shows that he has 91,600 followers and follows only three other Twitter accounts: his own Arabic and Farsi streams and the statements and messages of late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the newspaper reports.
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