Iran Denounces Meta’s Suspension Of Khamenei’s Accounts
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian lambasted Meta’s decision to remove Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s accounts from Instagram and Facebook.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian lambasted Meta’s decision to remove Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s accounts from Instagram and Facebook.
"Blocking the media accounts of the supreme leader of the revolution is not only a violation of freedom of speech but also an insult to millions of followers of his views," he told Middle East Eye news website on Friday.
Hailing Khamenei as “the most prominent supporter of the oppressed people of Palestine and Gaza,” Iran’s top diplomat attributed Meta’s suspension of the Supreme Leader’s pages in February to a larger campaign allegedly aimed at oppressing pro-Palestinian voices on social media.
The criticism contradicts Iran's own extensive censorship of the internet and social media for more than two decades. Most najor social media platforms and tens of thousands of websites are blocked in Iran.
Amir-Abdollahian denounced the West’s motto of freedom of expression as “hollow and showy,” further adding that it serves as a cover for what he called the West’s “illegitimate political goals.”
The Iranian regime has been a staunch supporter of Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas which invaded Israel on October 7 in what was the most deadly single day for Jews since the Holocaust. The attack killed 1,200 mostly civilians and saw 240 taken hostage to Gaza.
Both Iranian dissidents and pro-Israeli activists have for long urged social media companies to shut down Khamenei’s accounts over restricting access to the Interment inside Iran and also his anti-Semitic remarks and policies.
Welcoming Meta’s move, many Iranian social media users to follow suit and deactivate Khamenei’s accounts on X.
In January, Samara Azzi, a Lebanese commentator, warned of coordinated operations of an Iran-backed “cyber army” to silence anti-Hamas and anti-Hezbollah voices on X.
The pro-Iranian cyber army is “gaming the platform’s limited moderation controls in English and especially Arabic to suppress criticism and amplify their own narrative,” she said.
This can also signal Khamenei's weakness in controlling the ultraconservatives he helped bring to power in an election on March 1 with the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic's history.
The latest indications of disobedience emerged within hours of Khamenei's advice and orders to hardliners to avoid disgraceful confrontations with each other.
Hamid Rasaei, a former hardliner lawmaker with a questionable reputation, who was disqualified to run in the 2020 parliamentary election, got the go ahead to run this year and won a seat at the parliament (Majles). Within a few days of his election, Rasaei attacked the incumbent Majles Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and his predecessor Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel and called for Ghalibaf's removal from his post.
Both the incumbent and former speakers happen to be relatives of Khamenei. Iranian pundits predicted that granting too much leverage to the ultraconservatives would one day lead them to turn against the leader. It took only a few days for this prediction to come true.
Rasaei wrote in a tweet Friday evening that IRGC-linked Fars News Agency has called for rejecting his credentials as a member of parliament. Rasaei added defiantly that the IRGC agency's threat does not scare him.
As if that was not enough to signal the disobedience that was swiftly responded to by an IRGC media outlet, hours after Khamenei's speech on Thursday, Rasaei repeated his accusations against Ghalibaf once on X (previously known as Twitter) and again on live state television.
Rasaei tweeted that Ghalibaf should be removed from his post as Majles Speaker because he has won only around 400,000 votes in the election while he had won more than 1,200,000 votes in 2020. The decline in Ghalibaf's popularity meant that a major change should occur in the leadership of the parliament.
On prime-time Thursday evening, Rasaei repeated that in a live program on the state television and charged that Tasnim News Agency and Javan Newspaper, two of the media outlets of Iran's revolutionary Guards (IRGC), which he said support Ghalibaf, have attacked him subsequently.
Rasaei also claimed that Khamenei's advice to newly elected lawmakers to avoid conflicts and controversies did not address him. This comes while Tasnim News Agency made it clear on its official X account that Rasaei's statements on state TV were clearly in contravention of Khamenei's remarks.
However, the state TV's deputy chief for political affairs, Alireza Khodabakhshi, was fired the day after, possibly for allowing Rasaei to utter his provocative remarks on air. Khodabakhshi is a an ultraconservative Paydari figure.
In another sign of disobedience to Khamenei, Hassan Bayadi, one of the founders of Abadgaran, a political organization that gave rise to Paydari Party and supported former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and is currently a staunch supporter of the Raisi administration, accused the older generation of lawmakers of not knowing what to say and what not to say.
The Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) quoted Bayadi as using an expression Haddad Adel had used to describe the new ultraconservatives and older politicians. Haddad Adel had likened older conservatives such as Ghalibaf to big trees and the new ultraconservatives as tiny plants. Bayadi said in the interview with ILNA: "May God help us! The totalitarian big trees at the Parliament do not know what to say and what not to say."
Bayadi, who has been so far close to Khamenei's office, also made unforgivable mistakes in that statement: First he attacked Khamenei's relatives, and second, he did not abide by Khamenei's advice to avoid controversies and conflicts among insiders.
The occurrence of two such cases in one day, make it difficult for Khamenei to re-establish his authority in the eyes of his devoted followers who used to see him as an infallible God-like father figure. Almost everyone has seen the signs of aging and illness in Khamenei's face and posture, despite his attempt to walk without a walking stick to prove his fitness.
As conservative activist and analyst Abdolrahim Ansari pointed out, Khamenei did not ask ordinary social media activists to avoid infighting and controversy. He was addressed candidates who have been elected with his blessing without the right qualifications in an engineered election.
