Iran protests set off solidarity rallies in US, Europe

WASHINGTON (AP) – Chanting crowds marched by the streets of Berlin, Washington DC and Los Angeles on Saturday to point out worldwide assist for protesters going through a crackdown. authorities violence in Iranattributable to the demise of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini within the custody of that nation’s ethics police.

On the Nationwide Mall of america, 1000’s of men and women of all ages – wearing inexperienced, white and pink, the colours of the Iranian flag – chanted to the beat. “Worry. Worry. We’re considered one of these,” the protesters shouted, earlier than marching to the White Home. “Say her identify! Mahsa!”

The protests, introduced collectively by grassroots organizers from throughout america, drew Iranians from throughout the Washington DC space, with some descending from Toronto to hitch the crowds.

In Los Angeles, which has the biggest Iranian inhabitants outdoors of Iran, a crowd of protesters shaped a slow-moving procession alongside the blocks of a closed avenue downtown. They chanted for the autumn of the Iranian authorities and waved a whole bunch of Iranian flags that turned the horizon into an undulating wave of pink, white and inexperienced.

“We wish freedom,” they mentioned like thunder.

Shooka Scharm, a lawyer born within the US after her dad and mom fled the Iranian revolution, wore a T-shirt with the slogan “Girls, Life, Freedom” in English and Farsi. In Iran, “ladies are like second-class residents and they’re sick of it,” says Scharm.

Iran’s nationwide anti-government protest motion first centered on the nation’s obligatory hijab for girls following Amiri’s demise on September 16. Protests there have grow to be largest problem to the Islamic Republic because the Inexperienced Motion in 2009 over contested elections. In Tehran on Saturday, anti-government protests happened at a number of universities.

Iranian safety forces dispersed gatherings in that nation with dwell ammunition and tear fuel, killing greater than 200 individuals, together with underage women, based on human rights teams.

The Biden administration mentioned it condemns the brutality and repression in opposition to Iranian residents and can search to impose additional sanctions in opposition to the Iranian authorities if the violence continues.

Amid cheers, DC protesters joined within the track, singing conventional Persian music about life and freedom – all written after the 1979 revolution introduced fundamentalists The spiritual system got here to energy in Iran. They sang a particular verse in unison – “Baraye”, which suggests as a result of, the track grew to become the unofficial anthem of the Iranian protests. The artist of that track, Shervin Hajipour, was arrested shortly after posting the track to his Instagram on the finish of September. It has garnered greater than 40 million views.

“For girls, life, freedom,” the protesters sang, echoing the favored protest chant: “Azadi” – Freedom.

The motion in Iran is rooted in points just like these within the US and globally, mentioned protester Samin Aayanifard, 28, who left Iran three years in the past. “It is head masking in Iran and right here within the US, after 50 years, ladies’s our bodies are managed,” mentioned Aayanifard, who drove from East Lansing, Michigan to hitch the DC march. She refers back to the rollback of abortion legal guidelines in america. “It is about taking management of a lady’s physique.”

Saturday’s solidarity protests that lasted a number of weeks within the US capital drew rising crowds.

In Berlin, a crowd was estimated by German police to be within the tens of 1000’s of individuals turned out to point out solidarity with the ladies and activists who’ve led the motion over the previous few weeks in Iran. The protests within the German capital, organized by the Girls’s Freedom Lives Basis (asterisk), started on the Victory Column in Berlin’s Tiergarten park and continued as a march by the centre. Berlin.

Some protesters there mentioned that they had come from elsewhere in Germany and different European international locations to point out assist.

Shakib Lolo, who’s Iranian however lives within the Netherlands, mentioned: “It is necessary for us to be right here, to be the voice of the Iranian individuals, who have been killed within the streets. “And this isn’t a protest anymore, it is a revolution, in Iran. And the individuals of the world should witness it.”

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Leopard blood from Los Angeles.

Comply with AP’s report on Iran at: https://apnews.com/hub/iran