Anti-Minority Propaganda Strikes Back: Iran's July in Hate Speech

It was too good to last.

After two months of dramatic drops in Persian-language hate speech against Iran’s religious minorities – with a 43 per cent decline in May and another 38 per cent decline in June – July held steady with about 24,000 pieces of hate speech published online. IranWire also broadened some of its tracking beyond just religious minorities in July, understanding that hate speech is intersectional and analyzing it one community at a time may miss a bigger picture.

The month’s most quoted post on X was posted by a troll to Ali Akbar Raefipour’s profile, an Iranian political and media personality, in a post that attacked Dervishes and Yamanis with derogatory comments. A popular but xenophobic hashtag seen in June, #DeportingAfghansIsNationalDemand, confirms reports that IranWire has published elsewhere on Afghan migrants and refugees noting increased violence and discrimination.

The worst surge in hateful or violent rhetoric online targeted the Yamani religious group, which saw a shocking 145 per cent increase in hate speech – albeit from a low base. IranWire will monitor this development in the coming months to understand whether it was a one-off or represents a new pattern.

Iranian Christians also experienced a severe increase in hate speech in July, with 2,710 instances showing a 43 per cent increase in hate speech. Over a thousand of these posts continued to use the derogatory term “Aramene” against Christians – and it was even used by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a meeting with the (Christian) Armenian prime minister. The incident demonstrates yet again how embedded hateful discourse is in the messaging and rhetoric of the Islamic Republic.

Two months of decline in anti-Baha’i hate speech also saw a sudden and unfortunate reversal in July – with a 25 per cent increase for over 1,800 posts. Many of the posts followed an interview with former Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in which he reiterated past messaging that “being a Baha’i is not a crime in Iran.” The interview went viral and prompted many trolls to post anti-Baha’i content – in particular on July 19, which coincided with Friday prayers in Tehran and across the country.

The top hashtags associated with these hateful posts were #Zarif and #Pezeshkian. The former foreign minister is an outspoken supporter of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian; and while his interview may have appeared conciliatory regarding Baha’is, it also belies his past comments in which he has said Baha’is are guilty of political crimes.

Anti-Sunni hate speech also saw a 27 per cent jump – with about 2,160 instances recorded in IranWire’s tracking. The spike came on July 30 after a violent clash between Sunni and Shia tribes in Pakistan resulted in numerous casualties. The anti-Sunni posts often also included the anti-Afghan hashtag which again underlined the intersectional and sectarian nature of hate speech targeting religious minorities alongside ethnic minorities and foreign nationals. If you hate one then you hate them all.

Iran’s Zoroastrians saw a modest increase of 9 per cent in hateful posts – though any increase is to be regretted. But as a strange outlier, in particular given the difficult and dark history of anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial, and opposition to not only Israel but Jewish Israelis, Persian-language anti-Semitic content online continued to decline last month. The volume was nevertheless still high – the majority of the month’s full share – with 17,200 posts showing an 11 per cent decrease over June. Specific anti-Zionism posts also accounted for a larger proportion of the overall anti-Semitic material – showing a shift in the rhetoric but not a fundamental abandonment of the hateful ideology.