Iran’s supreme leader has criticised the Oscar-nominated Iraq war biopic American Sniper for encouraging attacks on Muslims.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made the comments during a meeting with representatives of the Islamic Republic’s religious minorities in parliament three weeks ago, according to the the state-run IRAN Farsi newspaper yesterday. He also reportedly said he had not seen Clint Eastwood’s film but had heard about its plot.
“The movie ‘Sniper’ that is made by Hollywood encourages a Christian or non-Muslim youngster to harass and offend the Muslims as far as they could,” the newspaper quotes Khamenei as saying. He also discussed attacks by German neo-Nazis and reportedly alleged that Muslims have no safety in the West, adding: “You are seeing what sort of propaganda there are against Muslims in Europe and the US.”
There was no indication as to why Khamenei’s comments were being made public three weeks after they had reportedly first been made.
American Sniper, which stars Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller, has taken $392m (£255m) at the global box office and passed the $300m mark in the US alone. Eastwood’s film is also up for six Oscars, including best actor for Cooper and best picture.
Deadline reports that the biopic of Chris Kyle, the deadliest sniper in US military history with 160 confirmed kills over four tours of Iraq, is also proving popular in the Middle East. Though it has not received any screenings in Iran, it has picked up more than 300,000 admissions elsewhere in the region. The film has even been seen by 7,000 cinema-goers in Iraq, though it has largely screened in semi-autonomous Kurdistan for fear of protests. The Washington Post reported earlier this month that Baghdad’s only cinema was forced to cancel screenings after filmgoers and government officials complained that the film “insults” Iraqis.
Some American Muslims have also hit out at treatment of minorities in the wake of American Sniper’s box office success. Abed Ayoub, legal director of the Washington DC-based American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, has described the film as a “turning point” and criticised the lack of US media coverage for the fatal shooting of three young Muslim students in North Carolina last week.