Shabtabnews In this dark night, I have lost my way – Arise from a corner, oh you the star of guidance.
Al-Monitor – The Supreme Leader of Iran lashed out today at Iranians living in the United Kingdom.
“I once referred to the British Shia. Some falsely said what we mean by British Shia is the Shia living in England. No, we mean the people who follow the British in creating discord, the conflict-inciting Shia,” said Ayatollah Ali Khameini on Twitter.
Khameini added that such individuals are “like Wahhabis & Takfiris who serve the enemy in this way.”
Wahhabism is a Sunni fundamentalist form of Islam that predominates in Iran’s geopolitical foe Saudi Arabia. Takfiri is an Arabic-language term that refers to apostasy in Islam. Iran often calls the Islamic State and other Sunni groups takfiris.
What it means: Tens of thousands of Iranians and people of Iranian heritage live in the UK. Many are Shiite Muslims, though there are also communities of Jewish, Christian and irreligious Iranian Britons.
Some members of the UK’s Iranian community have demonstrated recently in solidarity with the ongoing anti-government protests in Iran. The BBC’s Persian language service and the London-based Iran International have also covered the protests extensively, leading the Islamic Republic to accuse them of “hostile reporting.”
One Iran analyst said the ayatollah’s tweet is a reference to these Persian-language British media outlets.
“Khamenei and Iranian officials have seized on the UK being home to a number of Iranian diaspora networks — BBC Persian, Iran International, and Manoto — as responsible for foreign engineering of the protests,” Jason Brodsky, the policy director of United Against a Nuclear Iran, told Al-Monitor. “It’s a way for the establishment to deflect responsibility.”
Why it matters: Widespread protests and riots began last month in Iran in response to the death of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, who was allegedly beaten to death by religious police over her hijab. Some of the protesters have gone so far as to call for the downfall of the Islamic Republic. Khameini and other Islamic Republic officials have remained defiant so far, accusing “enemies” of being behind the protests.
Know more: The Islamic Republic has expressed animosity towards the UK for decades. Much of their anger relates to the UK and the United States orchestrating the 1953 coup in Iran that bolstered the rule of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The shah was later overthrown himself during the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
