Iran International
Simultaneous anti-regime protests in Iran and abroad Saturday awakened a sense of unity and solidarity that anti-regime Iranians had not experienced in decades.
Despite the heavy presence of security forces and serious disruption of the internet, Iranians took to the streets on Saturday [Oct. 22], wherever they found the chance, while the diaspora gathered in many major cities abroad to tell the world that the rulers of the Islamic Republic do not represent the people of Iran.
Saturday and Wednesday protests called by underground youth groups (Javanane-Mahalat) in various cities have turned into a regular weekly event keeping security forces constantly on their toes these days.
Judging from video footage trickling out, the protests Saturday were by far the largest and most widespread so far despite the massive mobilization of security forces, constant crackdown on protesters and activists, and evermore tighter internet control.
“The anti-riot police have to use even their dilapidated vehicles and pickup trucks to maintain their heavy presence in so many places,” a member of an underground youth group in one of the southern cities of Iran told Iran International.
“The internet has become useless so communication for organizing protests is next to nil,” he said adding that it has been extremely difficult to access social media platforms through VPNs in the past three weeks. “They have constantly been at it to hack our Twitter accounts, too,” he said.
On the same day, over 80,000 expatriates from every political inclination poured into Berlin, Germany, from all over Europe to show their solidarity with the protesters in Iran. According to the spokesman of the German Police around 50,000 were expected to attend but the size of the crowd rose to around 80,000. Similar but smaller rallies were held across the globe, from New Zealand and Australia to US and Canada, to demand an end to the rule of the Islamic Republic.
The diaspora’s turnout has angered the government in Tehran which is trying to belittle it.
The gathering in Berlin was called by an Iranian-Canadian activist, Hamed Esmaeilion, who lost his daughter and wife in the downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane in January 2020 by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).
Esmaeilion delivered a speech at the spectacular gathering which was reminiscent of Martin Luther King’s famous “We Have a Dream” speech.
“We all have dreams that will only come true if the Islamic Republic collapses. This dream will come true with the toppling of Ali Khamenei’s empire of fear and crime,” he said while the massive crowd cheered him.
“In our dream wind will blow in women’s hair, in our dream children will not be forced to learn ideologies belonging to the Middle Ages, in our dream no one will attack girls’ schools, nobody will push people’s children down from heights or hit their heads against the curb, no one will shoot at them from behind,” Esmaeilion -- a dentist, author, and spokesman of the families of victims of flight PS752 – said.
Esmaeilion urged western countries to stop negotiating with the Islamic Republic and to expel Iran's ambassadors. “No one is asking you to get involved in a war [with the Islamic Republic], no one is asking you to impose sanctions on the [Iranian] people. We are asking you to impose targeted sanctions against the officials of the Islamic Republic,” he said.
Esmaeilion said Western powers should send “a strong political signal” to the regime to show they “believe in the revolution of brave Iranian youth”.
“Demonstrate respect for the most progressive revolution in the history of the Middle East and do not forget that we, the people of Iran, will neither forget nor forgive collaborators with the villainous Islamic Republic,” he added.
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The Berlin rally was the biggest-ever gathering of Iranians outside Iran, which took place peacefully and successfully, drawing crowds from most European countries.
There is little doubt that for now the protest movement, that many call ‘the revolution,’ has brought about a strong unity on one major issue – people in Iran and in the diaspora do not want the clerical regime.
Gone is the idea of being patient and waiting for reforms in Iran.
Since 2017, the governing military-clerical elite has proven that it is increasingly tilting toward more despotism and radicalism in domestic and foreign policies. Even regime insiders who were a bit more moderate have been completely sidelined since February 2020, when an engineered election handed over the parliament to hardliner elements mostly connected with the Revolutionary Guard.
They were the ones who in December 2020 voted for high levels of uranium enrichment, bringing Iran very close to a nuclear threshold state. They also refused direct talks with the United States in the long and fruitless negotiations in Vienna since April 2021.
The current mobilization and unity among diaspora Iranians in Europe, Canada, the United States, Australia and elsewhere, pose a challenge to Western governments who are suddenly faced with their own citizens of Iranian descent demanding stronger policies toward the Islamic Republic.
A case in point was a tweet by US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley on Sunday who praised Iranian marchers in Washington DC and Los Angeles, but then said that demonstrators are asking “their government to respect their dignity and human rights.”
More than 2,500 people responded to his tweet mostly challenging his formulation that Iranians simply want respect from their government. They said that Iranians reject the current regime, not that they are asking for a change of behavior by the authoritarian system. There were as many critical comments as ‘Likes’ that Malley’s tweet received. Some even asked for his resignation as a Biden official who in their perception is not sympathetic to what most Iranians want.
American Iranian activist and women’s rights advocate Masih Alinejad tweeted on Sunday, saying it is time for Malley to be replaced.
An Instagram post by Iran International on Sunday asking the public what they think about Malley’s tweet elicited almost 7,000 comments, almost all critical of the US envoy.
The criticism of Malley goes back to his role as an architect of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and the lead negotiator to restore that accord in the Biden Administration; a step that would provide tens of billions of dollars to the clerical regime, giving it the means to suppress protests and enrich its militant proxies in the region.
The activist segment of the Iranian American community has become self-assured and more determined to support the protesters inside the country. Wobbling by Democrats will cost them votes, as there is already a degree of skepticism about Jimmy Carter’s party seen as responsible for abandoning the Shah in 1978 and helping to bring the Islamic Republic to power.
European governments will also soon realize that there is a substantial Iranian voting bloc in Germany, Britain, Sweden and some other countries. Already, second and third generation Iranians are getting elected to public office in some European countries. Two young Iranian women became ministers in Sweden this month.
The rallies in support of protesters in Iran are giving the Iranian diaspora an organization and grassroots leaders who reject pro-regime lobbying groups they have come to discredit lately. Their role is most evident in Canada, where the government in October adopted sanctions against the Revolutionary Guard.