TEHRAN — Years of looting other nations prove “freedom of other” is missing in the U.S. leadership, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

Yrs of looting & coercion prove FREEDOM OF OTHER lacked in the US successive leadership's mindsets. Under Trump, the horrible reactions to peaceful protests remind 🌍 the very scandalous history. #JUNETEENTH2020 is a high time to decry the US 'humans new slavery' at home & beyond

— Iran Foreign Ministry 🇮🇷 (@IRIMFA_EN) June 20, 2020

“Yrs of looting & coercion prove FREEDOM OF OTHER lacked in the US successive leadership's mindsets,” the ministry said in a tweet.

“Under Trump, the horrible reactions to peaceful protests remind the world the very scandalous history. #JUNETEENTH2020 is a high time to decry the US 'humans new slavery' at home & beyond.”

Juneteenth is a holiday celebrating the emancipation of those who had been enslaved in the United States. Originating in Texas, it is now celebrated annually on the 19th of June throughout the United States, with varying official recognition.

Specifically, it commemorates Union army general Gordon Granger announcing federal orders in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, proclaiming that all slaves in Texas were free.

Texas being the most remote of the slave states had a low presence of Union troops after the American Civil War had ended, thus enforcement there had been slow and inconsistent before Granger's announcement. 

Although Juneteenth is commonly thought of as celebrating the end of slavery in the United States, it was still legal and practiced in two Union border states (Delaware and Kentucky) until December 6, 1865, when ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery nationwide.

The Juneteenth celebrations took place against a backdrop of unprecedented nationwide protests demanding racial justice sparked by the death of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis who was killed by a white police officer kneeling on his neck for almost nine minutes.

On Friday morning, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted a threat against any protesters who showed up at the rally, now scheduled for Saturday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the site of one of nation’s worse race massacres.

“Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis,” Trump wrote, adding, “It will be a much different scene!”

MH/PA