WASHINGTON (AP) – Chanting crowds took to the streets of Berlin, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles on Saturday in a show of international support for protesters facing a violent government crackdown in Iran sparked by Mahsa’s death. Amini, 22, in Iran. the custody of the moral police of this country.
On the US National Mall, thousands of women and men of all ages, dressed in green, white and red, the colors of Iran’s flag, shouted to the beat. “Be scared. Be scared. We are one in this,” chanted the protesters, before marching towards the White House. “Say her name! Mahsa!”
The demonstrations, organized by grassroots organizers from across the United States, drew Iranians from all over the Washington DC area, with some coming down from Toronto to join the crowd.
In Los Angeles, home to the largest population of Iranians outside of Iran, a crowd of protesters formed a slow procession along blocks of a closed downtown street. They chanted for the downfall of the Iranian government and waved hundreds of Iranian flags that turned the skyline into a rippling wave of red, white and green.
“We want freedom,” they thundered.
Shooka Scharm, a lawyer who was born in the United States after her parents fled the Iranian revolution, wore a T-shirt with the slogan “Women, Life, Freedom” in English and Farsi. In Iran “women are like second-class citizens and they are fed up with it,” Scharm said.
Iran’s national anti-government protest movement first focused on the mandatory hijab covering for women after Amiri’s death on 16 September. Since then, the demonstrations have morphed into the biggest challenge to the Islamic Republic since the Green Movement of 2009 over disputed elections. More anti-government protests took place in Tehran on Saturday at several universities.
Iran’s security forces have dispersed the country’s rallies with live ammunition and tear gas, killing more than 200 people, including teenagers, according to rights groups.
The Biden administration has said it condemns the brutality and repression against Iran’s citizens and will look for ways to impose more sanctions against the Iranian government if the violence continues.
Between chants, the DC protesters chanted, singing traditional Persian music about life and freedom, all written after the 1979 revolution brought religious fundamentalists to power in Iran. They sang one in particular in unison: “Baraye,” meaning because of, which has become the unofficial anthem of Iran’s protests. The artist of this song, Shervin Hajipour, was arrested shortly after posting the song on his Instagram in late September. It accumulated more than 40 million views.
“For women, life, freedom,” chanted the demonstrators, echoing a popular protest chant: “Azadi” – Freedom.
The movement in Iran is rooted in the same issues as in the US and around the world, said protester Samin Aayanifard, 28, who left Iran three years ago. “It’s a forced hijab in Iran and here in the United States, after 50 years, women’s bodies are under control,” said Aayanifard, who drove from East Lansing, Michigan, to join the march of DC. He referred to the repeal of abortion laws in the United States. “It’s about controlling women’s bodies.”
Several weeks of Saturday solidarity rallies in the US capital have drawn growing crowds.
In Berlin, a crowd estimated by German police to be in the tens of thousands showed solidarity with the women and activists who have been leading the movement in recent weeks in Iran. The protests in the German capital, organized by the Woman(asterisk) Life Freedom Collective, began at the Victory Column in Berlin’s Tiergarten Park and continued as a march through central Berlin.
Some protesters said they had come from other parts of Germany and other European countries to show their support.
“It’s very important for us to be here, to be the voice of the people of Iran, who are being killed in the streets,” said Shakib Lolo, who is from Iran but lives in the Netherlands. “And this is no longer a protest, this is a revolution, in Iran. And the people of the world must see it”.
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Blood has been reported from Los Angeles.
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