Ayatollah Khamenei’s Twitter account suspended after posting Donald Trump 'death threat'

On Friday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei posted a picture to his Farsi Twitter account of a man on a golf course, which bore a striking resemblance to former US president Donald Trump, as the shadow of what appears to be a stealth bomber flew overhead. 

Accompanying the tweet, Khamenei wrote, “Revenge is inevitable.”

“Revenge must be taken on Soleimani’s killer and the person who ordered the murder of Soleimani,” he added. 

The accompanying message in Khamenei's recent tweet was first used by the Iranian supreme leader in a tweet in December, but the ominous picture is a new addition, and comes at a time of uncertainty between the US and Iran.

Although Khamenei has lost access to his @khamenei_site, the suspension has not affected his Russian language feed, Spanish feed, Arabic feed, Farsi feed, nor his additional English feed.

Some Twitter users compared the picture posted by Khamenei, to the inciting tweets that got former president Trump removed from the platform, and called for similar action. 

“@jack are you reading these?This tweet is ok?” said one user in a message directed at Twitter CEO Jack Dorsy.

This is not the first time that the Iranian leader has been censured by Twitter. 

In December, Twitter removed a tweet in which he claimed that the Covid-19 vaccines made in the US and UK were unreliable and could be designed to “contaminate other nations”.

Khamenei’s ban is the latest in a string of suspensions that the social media giant has performed.

Read more: Why deplatforming Trump is no atonement for Silicon Valley's sins abroad

On Thursday, Twitter locked the official Twitter account of the Chinese Embassy in the US following a tweet that defended Beijing’s discriminatory practises against its Uighur Muslim population in Xinjiang.

Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene was suspended for repeatedly posting false claims of alleged election fraud in Georgia. 

Twitter's most prominent suspension to date is perhaps that of former president Donald Trump, who had used his account to incite rioters leading up to a deadly riot in the US Capitol.

Explaining their decision, Twitter said, “After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account, we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”

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