Anti-US billboards still prominent on streets of Tehran
'Death to America' graffiti may have been erased from one wall, but a poster comparing US President Obama to the killer of a revered Shiite imam decorates another. And it's not the only one
While Iranian authorities may have removed anti-American graffiti from a wall in downtown Tehran, giant billboards calling for the downfall of the United States and mocking US President Barack Obama still adorn buildings in the capital of the Islamic Republic, a photographer for The Times of Israel found.
Earlier this week, conservative Iranian website Farda News published a photo of a man painting over the slogan “Death to America 2015,” sprayed on the outer wall of what was once the US embassy in Tehran. The photo was interpreted by some as a new display of goodwill by the ayatollah regime toward the United States following the signing of a nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on July 14.
But signs disparaging Obama and the United States are still prominent in Tehran, as photographed on September 1.
One giant billboard depicts the American flag’s Stars and Stripes as skulls and falling bombs over the words “Death to America.” The inscription beneath the image quotes Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying: “We will not compromise with the US even for one moment.”
Another sign quotes Sayyed Mohammad Beheshti, an Iranian revolutionary leader who headed Iran’s judicial system post-1979 until his assassination in 1981, saying: “America, you can be angry with us, and die in your anger!”
A third sign bashes Obama by depicting him standing next to an image of Yazid I, a seventh century Sunni Caliph responsible for the killing of Imam Hussein, one of the most revered characters in Shiite Islam.
Meanwhile, more than a dozen hard-line Iranian students have unveiled an anti-American plaque at the gate of the former US Embassy in Tehran.
The plaque unveiled Wednesday by the Basij paramilitary forces carries a list of condemnations of America uttered by the Islamic republic’s late founder, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. During the gathering, the students set fire to US, British and Israeli flags.
Iran and the U.S have had no diplomatic relations since 1979, when Iranian students stormed the embassy and took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.