Iranian woman explains reasons for Belfast protest as thousands killed back home
Some 200 Iranians have held a protest in Belfast to highlight the thousands of protestors being killed in their home country - while an internet black-out there makes it difficult to know the full scale of the bloodshed.
Edeh Zamani, 36, is an Iranian mother of two who has lived in Northern Ireland since 2001.
The paralegal organised a protest at Belfast City Hall on Saturday against the Iranian government massacre of thousands of protesters across the Middle Eastern country.
Some 200 Iranians took part in the rally.
She was surprised when a group of anti-immigration protestors standing nearby came over and offered their support.
“When they came over they started hugging us and took some Iranian flags to wave and said we had a good cause and that they supported us,” she said.
This was about the third – and largest – pro-democracy protest by Iranians in Belfast city centre this month.
Edeh has difficulty understanding why people in Northern Ireland hold street protests about so many international issues yet, in her view, do not offer the hand of solidarity for their events.
Her motivation for the protest was to highlight the thousands of people being killed on the streets of Iran while an internet blackout keeps events largely invisible to the outside world.
“When the protests started, it was to do with economic grievances. My friend was telling me that when they went to sleep one night the price of one egg was four times more than the day before.”
US President Donald Trump warned that if the Iranian regime starts killing people, he would target it. That prompted millions of Iranians, inside and outside Iran, to start demonstrations even stronger than before, because they trusted him. At that point many people – thousands and thousands – were killed.
“Then Trump said if they start executions he will take action – but now they have quietly executed [high-profile protestor] Erfan Oltani which has not been openly reported.
“So in the news, they're saying he has not been killed and Trump is still doing nothing. So we really need outside help here, because [Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei is an international terrorist, and he is not going to stop going anywhere to kill as many as he can.”
She is in favour of a European-style democracy in Iran, with freedom of religion and freedom of speech; At present, she noted, people are executed there for changing religion or being homosexual.
She is also opposed to Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamist terror attacks.
Their protest symbol is the Iranian flag featuring a lion, which symbolises the royal family of the former Shah, who was deposed by the current Islamic regime in 1979.
The figurehead for many pro-democracy protestors is Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who currently lives in the US.
However she said that supporters of the current Iranian regime are also holding protests in Belfast.
As a result her protest was deeply concerned when a man and a woman stood across the street and filmed the pro-democracy protest.
“But personally I just don't care because so many people are dying in Iran. This is the least I can do.”