[ad_1]
Propaganda channels in all three states quickly caught up with the story of the May 25 incident in which a Minneapolis state official smothered unarmed black George Floyd. From May 25 to June 3, about 27,000 appeared in Chinese, Russian, and Persian. articles on Flloyd’s death and subsequent protests in the United States. Efforts have been made to use these news streams to achieve broader foreign policy goals.
Russia, China and Iran have previously expressed outrage at the interference of the United States in its internal affairs. Russia accused the country of igniting and stopping the Moscow protests in 2019. Meanwhile, Washington’s support for the democratic movement in Hong Kong is seen by Beijing as a clear violation of China’s sovereignty. Iran has even stated that the protests that caused victims in 2019 are the product of a conspiracy led by the United States. Therefore, it is not surprising that most of the rhetoric used by these countries about Flloyd’s death is a reprimand from the United States for state action.
While the object of the criticism is the same, the criticisms of the United States and the narrative constructed by Iran, China, and Russia are different. The Kremlin is trying to portray the United States as a two-sided force that manipulatively exports “color revolutions” to the former Soviet bloc, but is now desperately trying to avoid a revolution at home. China is using the protests in the United States to demonstrate that Beijing’s actions against the Hong Kong protests are not worthy of criticism from other countries. The Iranian government emphasizes racial discrimination in the US. USA And the use of the police to quell the protests to discredit international criticism of the brutal crackdown on protests in Iran in the second half of 2019.
VIDEO: Events that have stimulated the Black Lives Matter movement: strong cases of violence against blacks
According to DFRLab, from May 25 to June 3, the name “George Floyd” was mentioned in about 20,000. Texts written in Mandarin, about 4.6 thousand. texts written in Persian and around 1.5 thousand. russian texts
The three countries mentioned here are using Flloyd’s death to achieve their own goals, thereby contributing to internal confrontation in the United States and trying to shuffle the country’s cards for foreign policy action.
Russia expects a “color revolution” in the United States
While US officials have warned that the Kremlin may try to use the current situation to divide society and deepen and sow racial conflict in it, there is as yet no evidence that Russia has embarked on an aggressive campaign on social media. or fuel tensions in the United States. But Kremlin officers are enthusiastically speaking about the current processes in the United States as if it were evidence of a systemic crisis and sharing their ideas with the Russian public.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the leader of Russia’s Liberal Democratic Party, said the United States is swinging on the brink of revolution and that Russia should send forces to the United States to protect people from violence.
Russian politicians have even drawn several parallels between ongoing protests in the United States and “color revolutions” in Eastern Europe, accusing the United States Democratic Party of sowing internal strife and trying to overthrow President Donald Trump. Alexei Zhuravliov, a member of the Russian Duma, expressed his opinion on the protests in the United States. He was one of those who accused the Democratic Party.
Scanpix / AP photo / United States protests over the murder of George Floyd
Kremlin officers are also vocal about the police force used to quell the protests. Igor Morozov, chairman of the Russian Federal Council for Science, Education and Culture, said the police force attacking the protesters was understandable as the same police officers trained supporters for the civil war in Iraq, Syria, Libya and other places. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the leader of Russia’s Liberal Democratic Party, said the United States is swinging on the brink of revolution and that Russia should send forces to the United States to protect people from violence.
The state, the Kremlin-funded media, as intensely as the politicians, build the history of the dangers of the “color revolution” in the United States. Russia Today (RT), for example, described the protests as “historic justice” because Washington in the former Soviet countries was following a “controlled chaos” strategy and the country is now experiencing the same thing. Margarita Simonian, editor in chief of RT, assured that after the current protests, the United States will intervene even more aggressively in foreign policy, since said policy brings economic benefits to the country and it will be necessary to divert attention from its internal problems.
Another Kremlin-run television channel, Rossiya 24, called the American protests “street wars” and described the exploitation of blacks as a normal and habitual practice in the United States. After all, the Kremlin propagandist Dmitry Kiseliov featured in his show a collage in which the Statue of Liberty kneels on G.Floyd’s neck.
China is using the United States protests to try to justify its crackdown on Hong Kong protesters
Beijing is using protests in the United States to defend and justify its actions against Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. The Chinese government’s criticism of the US government USA It is largely based on the way the US USA He treated the protesters, but in an attempt to express some of this sympathy to the protesters themselves.
During the protests, Chinese officials tried to get the United States authorities out of their teeth. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying shared a message on Twitter, “I can’t breathe,” along with a screenshot of Morgan Ortagus, a spokeswoman for the US State Department, expressing concern about the protests in Hong Kong.
Another Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, called on the United States to end discrimination against citizens on racial grounds and to protect minorities living in the country. Carrie Lam, head of the Hong Kong administrative region, accused the United States of “double standards” and assured her that the Hong Kong police handled the protesters really better than the United States and that the United States had no reason to criticize the Hong Kong authorities after the Americans Police deal with internal protests.
AFP / Scanpix photo / Hong Kong police clash with pro-democracy activists
Chinese state media also tried to take advantage of the unrest in the United States and condemned Washington’s response to the measures taken by Beijing against protesters in Hong Kong. Hu Xijin, editor of China’s state-run Global Times channel, said the protester had infiltrated Hong Kong in the United States and planned violent protests across the country.
He also claimed that “the US political system survived the decline until the US showed a willingness to undertake the necessary reforms.” The channel’s Twitter account also shared a widespread online video of New York City police vehicles cracking down on protesters. The video was tagged as “peacemakers or mass murderers.”
The Chinese propaganda media shared photos and videos showing the violence of the protesters, the burning of buildings and the excessive use of force. Another media channel in the Chinese tweet equivalent to Weibo shared a video comparing protesters in the United States and Hong Kong. The first part of the video featured the arrest of CNN journalist Omar Jiménez during the protests in Minneapolis. The video was accompanied by the caption “the video shows how brutally and unprofessionally the people arrested are” and a game tag with the text “how restricted the Hong Kong police are.” The second part of the video featured Hong Kong police officers surrounded by journalists in October 2019. The video received 135,000. positive reactions and almost 7 thousand. share in just a couple of days.
While China has tried to portray Hong Kong protest officials as more tolerant, there is evidence that in 2019 they used force and brutal measures to fight protesters. The protests in Hong Kong in 2019 began after the Chinese Communist Party introduced a bill that would allow the extradition of Hong Kong citizens to China. The project posed a very serious threat to Hong Kong’s legal independence, forcing the people of Hong Kong to live under the Chinese legal system.
In an attempt to break Hong Kong’s autonomy, the police used facial recognition technology to quell the protests and facilitate the tracking of protesters. Tear gas was also fired at metro stations and in densely populated areas, rubber bullets were fired from short distances, and journalists were harassed without causing them. It is also worth remembering that while Chinese representatives urge the United States to respect minority rights, the Chinese Communist Party has locked up over a million Uyghurs, Chinese Muslim minorities, in labor camps in the Northwest, claiming that it is doing so in the fight against terrorism and Islamist extremism.
Interestingly, China and Russia took advantage of each other’s stories about the United States protests. China’s Xinhua News reprinted a statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry on police violence against journalists during protests in the United States. Hua Chunying shared an RT video on Twitter. An RT journalist has also pointed out that the United States government has called Hong Kong protesters freedom fighters by calling criminal protesters.
Iran accuses the United States of discrimination and police brutality
The Iranian government has also not lost an opportunity to criticize the United States government. Although the Iranian government banned the tweets in 2009, some Iranian officials use the platform to spread certain messages. On May 27, Iranian Supreme Commander Ayatollah Khamenei shared a video on Twitter with the caption “If you walk in the United States with dark skin, you cannot be sure that you will not die in the next few minutes.”
Photo from Scanpix / Protests in Iran in November 2019
Like Chinese leaders, the Iranian authorities have also tried to catch the Donald Trump administration. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif shared a statement in which he extracted a statement made by United States Secretary Mike Pompeo two years ago. He replaced the word “Iran” throughout the text with the word “America”. A statement issued by Pompeo in 2018 highlighted the United States’ concern about certain undemocratic practices by the Iranian government. Zarif also wrote that Europe was silent on “brutality against protesters and the press” in the United States and accused Washington of using the “side by side” approach in recent years. Iranians
On May 29, Iran’s foreign minister condemned “deadly racial discrimination in the United States” and said “the voices of protesters must be heard.” Abbas Mousavi, the ministry’s public relations spokesman, said similarly, accusing the United States government of “glorifying systemic racism and white supremacy” and urging it to “end the oppression of the people.”
A montage comparing two photos was shared across many Iranian accounts: in one, Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneels on Flloyd’s neck, and in another, Iran’s top leader in 2013 kisses the hand of a African student. By sharing this photo, it was generally argued that Islam is much more peaceful than Western civilization, that Islam respects human rights more than Western societies, and that Western culture is based on discrimination and racism, while Islam is based on brotherhood and equality.
Iran’s criticism of the US government’s “brutal crackdown on protests” is an attempt to divert attention from human rights abuses in Iran, in particular protests stemming from the government’s refusal in November 2019 to cut back on fuel subsidies. Although only recently Iranian officials said the protest killed just 230 people, Amnesty International released information that mentioned at least 304 deaths, and an Iranian opposition website said that at least 631 people died during the protest. However, the Iranian authorities do not allow local media to freely describe the protests, often threatening criminal prosecution.
Russia, China and Iran clearly see the current turmoil in the United States as an opportunity to defend their interests. The excessive use of force to quell the protests after Flyd’s death has become an unexpected opportunity for these states to point to US hypocrisy, as it appears to condemn the government’s handling of the protests abroad, but it is behaving similarly. After all, the protests of the United States have become a great opportunity to divert attention from their own internal problems.
[ad_2]
