LONDON (HRNW) — As anti-government protests roil cities and towns in Iran for a fourth week, tens of thousands of Iranians living abroad have marched on the streets of Europe, North America and beyond in support of what many believe to be a watershed moment for their home country.
From those who fled in the 1980s after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution to a younger generation of Iranians born and raised in Western capitals, many in the diaspora community say they feel an unprecedented unity of purpose and affinity with the demonstrations at home sparked by the death of a 22-year-old woman detained by Iran’s morality police.
“I see this as a turning point for Iran in many ways — we’ve always had political fault lines that divided us, but this time it’s people saying, ‘I’m with women’,” said Tahirih Danesh, 52, a human rights researcher who lives and works in London. “It’s phenomenal, it’s happened at such speed, and this sense of camaraderie among Iranians has been amazing.”
In the past month, large crowds of people of Iranian origin in dozens of cities from London to Paris to Toronto have turned out every weekend for rallies in solidarity with protests that erupted in Iran after Mahsa Amini died in custody after she was detained for allegedly violating strict Islamic dress codes for women.