Amid reports claiming Iran has hatched a plot to kill Donald Trump, a gigantic corner billboard has come up in Enghelab Square in central Tehran, showing the US president lying in a coffin. The political symbolism and Tehran’s defiant narrative are carried forward for the passerby by a nearby statue depicting the fist of late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was assassinated at the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Iran has long used public spaces as a tool of political communication. But since the beginning of the war against the US-Israeli forces in late February, giant billboards — reflecting revolutionary imagery, war memorials, and ideological messages — have been placed in some of the busiest and most visible parts of Tehran as part of the Islamic republic’s broader visual communication strategy.
The new hoarding shows the US president’s body peeking out from an open black coffin. In the picture, his hair is disheveled, and his eyes and mouth are closed, as his hands rest on a red tie atop a protruding stomach. At the far end of the coffin, his feet point straight up.
Splattered across the black coffin are threats like “We Will Kill Trump,” written in both Persian and English. The white graffiti on the backdrop of the black coffin appeared like a blackboard wall erected for mourners during the memorial ceremonies for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s former supreme leader, who was killed as the war began on February 28.
The billboard’s graffiti referred to the former Supreme Leader as a martyr and had messages like “In memory of Minab’s children,” referring to the city in southern Iran where a strike hit an elementary school at the beginning of the war, according to a report by The New York Post.
Threatening or mocking imagery on Iranian billboards is nothing new. In May, a bilingual billboard targeted to Western — specifically American audiences — featured Trump’s mouth sutured on top with a rendering of the Strait of Hormuz, alongside the English phrase “The Breaking Point.”
Another billboard demonstrates Iranian military power through the image of a massive fishing net spread across the Persian Gulf. Inside the net are captured American aircraft, drones and naval vessels.
But these billboards rarely have such lucid messaging. It coincides with the vengeance seen in recent weeks among the Iranian public on behalf of Ali Khamenei and others killed in US-Israeli strikes. Recently, a conservative newspaper in Iran also published a list of people to be targeted as revenge for the killing of Khamenei, including the leaders of the US, Israel, and European countries.
The list features photos of 13 foreign leaders, including US President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, among others.
