In a thread of tweets on Tuesday, the Persian-language Twitter account of the U.S. Department of State refuted Iran's accusations of suppressing protesters and preventing the media from reporting it.
"The Iranian people dream of a day that they can have the same freedoms as the people of the United States when their country can finally achieve higher degrees of justice and opportunities," one of the tweets in the thread said and added: "The United States stands by the people of Iran".
Department of State Persian-language tweet on freedom in the United States and Iran.
Iran has been levelling accusations of racism against the U.S. government amid ongoing protests across the country. On Monday in a tweet Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Mousavi criticized the United States for "lecturing others", presumably alleging to police brutality against protesters.
At his weekly press conference on Tuesday, he also addressed the American people in English and said: " The world has heard your outcry over the State oppression. The world is standing with you".
Iran's state media has been covering the protests in the United States with direct reporting from Washington and has repeatedly shown footage of the protests. Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif and his spokesman Mousavi, the state-run media and hardliners also stress that the protests are taking place in the United States due to racism by the U.S. government.
In a tweet on Tuesday Zarif also accused Europe of keeping "deafeningly silent" while it is "quick to be judge and jury about non-Western societies" such as Iran.
But the State Department said in one tweet, "Journalists [in the United States] can report anything they want without fear of retribution or arrest. The news that Americans watch is not censored or controlled by the government. Iranians wish it was the same for them. "
In its Persian-language tweets the Department of State also reminded that Iran has arrested, imprisoned, and executed at least 860 journalists over the years and is still holding many in prison.
"The Iranian regime punishes those who peacefully demand freedom and dignity," one of the tweets said and charged that the Iranian regime has tried to "cover up the evidence of protests [in November], hid the bodies of those killed in the protests and concealed the arrest of the journalists who revealed the truth".
