Tehran: Instagram, the Facebook-owned photo-sharing app, has continued to delete accounts and posts on the Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in the January 3 US drone attack in Iraq, including two posts by Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, a report said.
Larijani had posted a note condoling Soleimani's death, but a few hours after users began commenting on the post, Instagram started to remove photos and hashtags about the top Iranian commander, and later deleted the Speaker's posts, the semi-official Fars News Agency said in the report on Tuesday.
Instagram also removed another post by the parliament speaker that showed him meeting Soleimani's son. On Monday, Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiyee slammed Instagram, saying that the social media platform has "blocked the voices of the oppressed nations".
"The blocking could be regarded as a non-democratic move," Fars News Agency quoted Rabiyee as saying in a tweet. Soleimani, 63, and his son-in-law and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Front (PMF), along with eight other people were killed in the drone attack ordered by US President Donald Trump.
Soleimani was heading the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps's elite Quds Force, which operates outside Iran and holds sway over a large number of militias across the region ranging from Lebanon to Syria and Iraq.
The attack has led to widespread condemnation in Iran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani has vowed revenge on the US. --IANS ksk/ (239 Words) 08011029 NNNN
