UANI Statement On Meta Removing Accounts Belonging To Supreme Leader Khamenei

(New York, N.Y.) — United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) CEO Ambassador Mark D. Wallace released the following statement today following Meta’s decision to remove accounts belonging to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran for “repeatedly violating” their platforms’ terms of service.

“UANI welcomes Meta’s long overdue decision to strip Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of the privilege of maintaining accounts on Facebook and Instagram. In so doing, Meta executives should reflect on the wisdom of failing to act when UANI first raised its concerns with CEO Mark Zuckerberg more than a decade ago. In that decade, Khamenei regularly posted propaganda and used Meta to spread his vile antisemitic beliefs, encourage violence, and endorse his state sponsors of terrorism. This caused immeasurable harm.

Letter to Mark Zuckerberg from UANI, calling for suspension of Ayatollah Khamenei’s Facebook account, May 20, 2013

“Meta should not be under any assumption that its delayed and limited enforcement of its terms of service is sufficient. It is not. The list of terrorists, terror financiers, and propagandists advocating for or endorsing violence that are active on Meta-owned platforms is long.

“Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, an active card-carrying member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)’s Basij paramilitary force who was reportedly present at planning meetings for the Hamas-led October 7 massacre in Israel, maintains an accounts on Instagram.

“Masoumeh Ebtekar, a propagandist that participated in holding Americans hostage for 444 days during the Iran Hostage Crisis, maintains an account on Facebook and another on Instagram.

“Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, who was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2019 for his administrative oversight of executions of child offenders and torture, including amputations, and his participation in a so-called ‘death commission’ that ordered the execution of thousands of political prisoners, is active on Instagram.

“Minister of Petroleum Javad Oji and the Ministry of Petroleum—both designated by the U.S. Treasury Department in November 2020 under counterterrorism authorities for their financial support of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization—have accounts on Instagram.

“Meta and other tech platforms, like X, are under no obligation to permit these and other regime officials to maintain the privilege of using their platforms and should take immediate corrective action. UANI has consistently called for this and will remain steadfast in pressuring these tech companies to take reasonable and warranted action against them.”