Iran’s leader tweets his support for U.S. protests

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, has turned to Twitter to lambaste U.S. authorities for their treatment of minorities, spotlighting Monday’s anniversary of the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee and tweeting #BlackLivesMatter in solidarity with protesters in New York and Missouri.

In a tweet posted Sunday, Khamenei referred to racial unrest in Ferguson, Mo., asserting: “#Jesus endured sufferings to oppose tyrants who had put humans in hell in this world & the hereafter while he backed the oppressed. #Ferguson.”

He was referring to the fatal shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown on Aug. 9, which set off months of rioting against authorities in Ferguson and a national debate on law enforcement’s relations with minorities.

Later in the day, the ayatollah added his voice to the campaign against racial profiling by police that accelerated with the Dec. 4 death of 43-yearold Eric Garner in New York.

Garner had been put in a chokehold by police officers who stopped him for selling bootleg cigarettes on the street.

“It’s expected that followers of #Jesus follow him in his fight against arrogants and in his support for the oppressed. #BlackLivesMatter,” Khamenei wrote, including the hashtag that has become a rallying cry since the Brown and Garner deaths.

He added the treatment of native Americans in the U.S. to his tweeted laments, noting Monday’s 124th anniversary of the 7th Cavalry Regiment massacre of up to 300 captured Lakota Sioux at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota. Khamenei has been among the most anti-American voices in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution overthrew U.S.-allied Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.