Iran protests spark solidarity rallies in US, Europe : NPR
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A person gestures as folks participate in a protest towards the Iranian regime in Berlin on Saturday.
Markus Schreiber / AP
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Markus Schreiber / AP
A person gestures as folks participate in a protest towards the Iranian regime in Berlin on Saturday.
Markus Schreiber / AP
WASHINGTON – Chanting crowds marched by the streets of Berlin, Washington, DC and Los Angeles on Saturday to indicate worldwide assist for protesters dealing with a violent crackdown. authorities in Iran, attributable to the loss of life of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini whereas within the custody of that nation’s ethics police.
On the Nationwide Mall of the USA, hundreds of men and women of all ages – wearing inexperienced, white and crimson, the colours of the Iranian flag – chanted to the beat. “Be afraid. Be afraid. We’re considered one of these,” the protesters shouted, earlier than marching to the White Home. “Say her title! Mahsa!”
The protests, introduced collectively by grassroots organizers from throughout the USA, drew Iranians from throughout the Washington DC space, with some descending from Toronto to affix the crowds.
In Los Angeles, which has the most important 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 lots of of Iranian flags that turned the horizon into an undulating wave of crimson, 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, “girls are like second-class residents they usually’re sick of it,” Scharm mentioned.
Iran’s nationwide anti-government protest motion first centered on the nation’s necessary hijab for girls following Amiri’s loss of life on September 16. Protests there have was The most important problem to the Islamic Republic because the Inexperienced Motion in 2009 over contested elections. In Tehran on Saturday, anti-government protests came about at a number of universities.
Protesters carry a big picture of Mahsa Amini throughout an illustration towards the Iranian regime, in Los Angeles, on Saturday.
Richard Vogel / AP
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Richard Vogel / AP
Protesters carry a big picture of Mahsa Amini throughout an illustration towards the Iranian regime, in Los Angeles, on Saturday.
Richard Vogel / AP
Iranian safety forces dispersed gatherings in that nation with stay ammunition and tear gasoline, killing greater than 200 folks, together with underage ladies, in keeping with human rights teams.
The Biden administration mentioned it condemns the brutality and repression towards Iranian residents and can search to impose additional sanctions towards the Iranian authorities if the violence continues.
Amid cheers, DC protesters joined within the tune, singing conventional Persian music about life and freedom – all written after the 1979 revolution introduced fundamentalists The non secular system got here to energy in Iran. They sang a particular verse in unison – “Baraye,” which means as a result of, the tune turned the unofficial anthem of the Iranian protests. The artist of that tune, Shervin Hajipour, was arrested shortly after posting the tune on his Instagram in late September. It has garnered greater than 40 million views.
“For Girls, Life, Freedom,” the protesters sang, echoing a well-liked protest tune: “Azadi” – Freedom.
The motion in Iran is rooted in points much like these within the US and globally, mentioned protester Samin Aayanifard, 28, who left Iran three years in the past. “It has been pressured to put on the hijab in Iran and right here within the US, after 50 years, girls’s our bodies are managed,” mentioned Aayanifard, who drove from East Lansing, Michigan to affix the DC march. . She refers back to the rollback of abortion legal guidelines in the USA. “It is about taking management of a girl’s physique.”
Saturday’s solidarity protests that lasted a number of weeks within the US capital drew rising crowds.
In Berlin, a crowd estimated by German police to be within the tens of hundreds of individuals got here to indicate solidarity with the ladies and activists who’ve spearheaded 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 indicate assist.
“It is vital for us to be right here, to be the voice of the Iranian folks, who had been killed within the streets,” mentioned Shakib Lolo, an Iranian however dwelling within the Netherlands. “And this isn’t a protest anymore, this can be a revolution, in Iran. And the folks of the world should witness it.”
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