Iran decries US police murder of black Americans, crackdown on protests

The Iranian Foreign Ministry has strongly denounces rampant bloodshed of African-Americans in the United States and the country’s suppression of the protests that have followed the recent grisly murder of a black man by a white police officer in Minneapolis.

“Iran regrets the tragic murder of black Americans, denounces deadly racial profiling in the United States & urges authorities to do justice for every case,” the ministry said in a tweet on Friday.

The condemnation came three days after disturbing footage surfaced online showing the police officer, Derek Chauvin, choking unarmed George Floyd to death after forcing him to the ground and pinning him down with his knee.

The officer refused to relieve the pressure, although Floyd was being heard repeatedly pleading for his life and saying, “I can’t breathe.”

The officers had been called to the scene — a Cup Foods’ store on the 3700 block of Chicago Avenue South — after the African-American victim was reported to be attempting to use forged documents.

Police spokesperson John Elders claimed that Floyd had resisted arrest, and also alleged that he had started “going into medical distress” after the officers forced him into handcuffs. The viral footage, however, came to clearly disprove the account.

Floyd’s death, a poignant reminder of repeated unjustifiable killings of members of the African-American community by the US police, has been followed by protests across the country. 

The Foreign Ministry’s tweet incorporated an intercut of videos showing the police confronting the protesters, protesters running away from police violence, and demonstrators setting the US flag on fire.

Rallies have turned violent in Los Angeles and Minneapolis, where the police have fired tear gas and rubber bullets against the demonstrators.