US officials erase praise for Iran Oscar win

The US state department has tweeted and then deleted a congratulatory message for an Oscar win by Iranian director Asghar Farhadi who criticized Trump’s travel ban as “inhumane”.

As the Guardian reports, the state department’s official Persian-language Twitter account, @USAdarFarsi, tweeted congratulations to the Iranian people and Asghar Farhadi, director of The Salesman, after the movie won an Oscar for best foreign-language film on Sunday, according to screenshots of the message circulated on Twitter.

Farhadi chose two Iranian-Americans – an engineer and a former Nasa scientist – to represent him at the ceremony. Anousheh Ansari, an engineer who was the first female space tourist, read a statement on Farhadi’s behalf calling the travel ban “inhumane”.

“Dividing the world into the ‘us’ and ‘our enemies’ categories creates fear, a deceitful justification for aggression and war,” Ansari said, reading from Farhadi’s statement.

According to screenshots circulating on Twitter, the @USAdarFarsi account posted a message around 1am EST congratulating Farhadi on the award, which was Iran’s second Oscar victory. The tweet was then deleted, although it is unclear exactly when.

A state department official said the decision to delete the tweet was made within the department.

Farhadi also won an Oscar in 2012 in the same category for his film A Separation. In his acceptance speech that year Farhadi referred to tensions at the time between Iran and the United States over Tehran’s nuclear programme and said the Iranian people “despise hostility and resentment.”

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