The billboards are state-sponsored, plastered across Iran’s capital and far from subtle.One features an image of President Donald Trump lying in a casket; another shows the White House on fire; a third is a parody of the American flag with skulls in place of the stars and bombs dropping from the stripes.
Alongside ads for a multitude of products such as cars and shampoo, the giant billboards have become familiar sights to the people of Tehran in recent years.But since the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in an airstrike on the first day of the war launched by the United States and Israel, the messaging has become bolder and the tone more violent during the almost six-month conflict.
After the supreme leader was killed in February, the Iranian regime posted banners of his son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, around Tehran.Vahid Salemi / APPictures of them captured by Iranian photojournalists over the last six months show people going about their daily lives next to the huge billboards with the violent imagery and messaging.
One shows a busy intersection last month near Tehran’s central Enghelab Square, where a huge billboard featuring benign images of Khamenei was replaced with one of Trump lying in a casket, his hands together over his belly.Above: An image depicts the White House in flames with "blood for blood, an eye for an eye" written in Persian and Hebrew.
Below: In Enghelab Square last month, a giant billboard appeared featuring Trump lying in a casket.Fatemeh Bahrami / AFP / Anadolu via Getty ImagesIn mock handwritten text, it refers to the sailors killed by a torpedo attack on the Iranian warship Iris Dena by the USS Charlotte attack submarine, along with a death threat aimed at Trump.Less than two weeks later, it was replaced by an image featuring Trump being strangled by several pairs of hands.“Revenge is inevitable,” a message in English said on it.
Since the beginning of the year, visual representation of d...