Thousands Protest Jailings in Iran

About 7,500 Iranian Americans converged at the Federal Building in Westwood on Saturday night in an emotion-packed but peaceful show of support for jailed university students in Iran.

The demonstration, which had been planned for months, occurred the same day that Iranian police fired bullets and tear gas at protesters in Tehran.

Organizers of the three-hour demonstration, which began with speeches and ended with a march down Wilshire Boulevard to UCLA and back, wanted to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Iranian security forces’ attacks on a campus demonstration, in which protesters had called for press freedoms and other reforms in Iran’s Islamic government.

At least one student died in that incident last year, which touched off the widest unrest in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Some of the student leaders of that protest remain in prison, and it was on their behalf that organizers planned Saturday’s demonstration.

“We don’t want to forget these students,” said Parichehreh Shojaei of Newport Beach. She, along with several other demonstrators, carried signs bearing a photo of a student, Ahmad Batebi, holding up the bloody T-shirt of a fellow student killed in last year’s protest. For his act of defiance, Batebi was sentenced to death; his sentence was commuted, but he remains in prison.

Organizers of the Los Angeles rally struggled to keep competing political factions from dominating the event. Demonstrators converged on the grassy lawn in front of the Federal Building, the elderly bringing lawn chairs to sit on while listening to dozens of speeches.

From the Federal Building, the demonstrators marched, waving Iranian flags and singing a nationalistic anthem currently banned by the Islamic government.

An activist organization called the Mission for the Establishment of Human Rights in Iran launched a petition drive aimed at persuading the U.S. government to put pressure on Iran for improved human rights before establishing diplomatic ties.

One of the speakers, Cal State Fullerton professor Fleur Tehrani, said the local protest was sponsored by Iranian opposition groups and would not be geared toward any particular opposition view, but would instead be solely a demonstration of support for the students.

But others, who last July attended a similar rally that drew 6,000 people, stayed away from Saturday’s demonstration because of concerns that it would be dominated by extremists shouting violent slogans and monarchists who favor a return of Reza Pahlavi II, the exiled son of the shah.

“We feel that, like at several other demonstrations, we have been used for a political agenda that is not democratic and is not inclusive enough,” said Nayereh Tohidi, a Cal State Northridge professor. She said that she and others not attending had filed petitions, written articles and planned a candlelight vigil later in the week.

Saturday’s rally was punctuated by noisy chants, mostly in Persian, of “Death to the Islamic Republic!” and “Death to [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei!” and others, to the dismay of some organizers and participants.

“I don’t think ‘Death to this person or death to that person’ is what we should be saying. We should talk on a positive note,” said one of the speakers, Khosrow Khosravani, a professor at UCLA and UC Irvine.

Some people applauded his remarks, but others started chanting again.

Soroush Mazhoom, a student from Philadelphia who was visiting his family here, said the hostile demonstrators reminded him of the government leaders they were decrying.

“Negative slogans and policies are what the regime is known for,” Mazhoom said. Demonstrators should instead be shouting, “Long Live the Students!” he added.

Tehrani, the Cal State Fullerton professor, agreed.

“I don’t think this helps anything,” she said.

In her remarks to the crowd, Tehrani spoke of the importance of the student demonstrators in Iranian political life.