{"id":106835,"date":"2022-11-08T07:10:43","date_gmt":"2022-11-08T12:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=106835"},"modified":"2022-11-08T07:10:43","modified_gmt":"2022-11-08T12:10:43","slug":"americans-overwhelmingly-support-protesters-in-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2022\/11\/08\/americans-overwhelmingly-support-protesters-in-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"Americans Overwhelmingly Support Protesters in Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"VOA \u2014 NEW ORLEANS \u2014 <\/span>The death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who was detained by the country\u2019s morality police for breaking a rule that mandates females wear hijabs, has sparked nearly two months of protests in every province across Iran. Videos on social media have shown Iranian women lighting their headscarves on fire, cutting their hair in public and yelling, \u201cDeath to the dictator.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not only in Iran where waves of protests have exploded.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are thousands of Americans in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and around the country shouting the same chants and holding the same signs as the oppressed people of Iran,\u201d said Majid Sadeghpour, political director at the Organization of Iranian American Communities. \u201cAmerica is paying attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

International focus is being drawn to the people of Iran as their government further intensifies its crackdown. Iran Human Rights, a Norway-based group, reported that as of last week, 234 people \u2014 including 29 children \u2014 had been killed by security forces. Additionally, Iranian authorities have announced they will hold public trials for 1,000 detained protesters in the country\u2019s capital, Tehran.<\/p>\n

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\"FILE<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
SEE ALSO:<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

New Iran Protests Erupt in Universities, Kurdish Region<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Shooka Scharm, a California-based lawyer of Iranian descent whose parents escaped the country shortly after the 1979 revolution, believes that after decades of associating Iran (and Iranians) with high-profile atrocities, Americans’ views are finally shifting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we traditionally think of Iranians, we think of how they took hostages at the U.S. embassy [in Tehran], or how they shot down a [Ukrainian] passenger plane [in 2020],\u201d she told VOA. \u201cBut what America is finally seeing is that this is a regime that commits those same atrocities against its own people \u2014 a regime that attacks its own universities and shoots its own women in the streets.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs human beings, that should pain us,\u201d Scharm continued. \u201cBut also as Americans, we should support a movement attempting to replace a regime that created the slogan, \u2018Death to America!\u2019 with a democracy that will support our priorities such as freedom and nuclear safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joining the cause<\/strong><\/p>\n

Americans with familial or professional ties to Iran are not the only ones who are paying attention to the protests. According to an Economist\/YouGov survey in October, two-thirds of Americans (67%) say they have heard about the recent uprising in Iran.<\/p>\n

Matthew Linkhart has lived in the United States all his life. Residing in Virginia and having a few Iranian friends, he said he almost immediately felt a desire to show his support for Iranian protesters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I saw young people being killed because they were protesting, I knew I couldn\u2019t ignore it,\u201d he told VOA. \u201cTeenage girls, who … you can find videos of them on social media laughing, singing and playing with their friends … these are little girls now on the front line of this revolution being arrested, beaten, shot and killed. It brings me to tears. How can I not get involved?\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"FILE<\/div>\n<\/div>
FILE – Demonstrators rally outside the White House to protest against the Iranian regime, in Washington, Oct. 22, 2022, following the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of the Islamic republic’s notorious “morality police.”<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Linkhart said he attended three protests in Washington last month, with plans to continue in November and beyond.<\/p>\n

He estimated he was one of 5,000 protesters on the National Mall recently. The demonstrators, he told VOA, chanted \u201cZan, Zendegi, Azadi\u201d (Women, Life, Freedom), \u201cDemocracy for Iran,\u201d and \u201cSay her name, Mahsa Amini\u201d \u2014 many of the same chants shouted by protesters in Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Iranian Americans seemed happy to have our support,\u201d Linkhart said. \u201cThe movement\u2019s flag is being waved, and I\u2019m just going to keep attending protests and being a voice for Iranians until they have the free country they deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Building additional support<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not only are most Americans paying attention to what\u2019s happening in Iran, but they are also overwhelmingly in support of the protesters.<\/p>\n

October\u2019s Economist\/YouGov poll found that nearly three-quarters of Americans (73%) strongly or somewhat approve of the country\u2019s recent protests, while only 7% disapprove.<\/p>\n

Still, there is a feeling by some that the U.S. media aren\u2019t giving the uprising as much attention as it deserves.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile there has been some media coverage on Iran,\u201d Morad Ghorban, director of government relations and public policy at Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans, told VOA, \u201cI think more can be done to cover and analyze what\u2019s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maryann Martelli, a communications professional from Miami, Florida, agrees. She said her job requires her to pay attention to international news, but she hasn\u2019t seen much regarding Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cI follow a lot of media publications on social media, which is an easy way to get news,\u201d Martelli said, \u201cbut I haven\u2019t seen a single post about it. Maybe the situation in Iran is somehow deprioritized in my feed?\u201d<\/p>\n

Even among those who have seen news about the protests, some say they don\u2019t have the time to pay attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have so much going on in their lives,\u201d Joseph Frisard, a cook from New Orleans, Louisiana, told VOA. \u201cI don\u2019t think everyone has the time and resources to pay attention to everything going on in the world. I support the cause Iranians are fighting for, I just don\u2019t know that me marching or tweeting is actually going to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Sadeghpour disagrees. He believes Americans have a specific role to play in supporting the people of Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout history, Americans have understood what it means to protect liberty and to defend oneself from aggression. America proved it during its own revolution, and they proved it again during the civil rights movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States is best served when it stands with people who seek self-determination,\u201d Sadeghpour continued. \u201cThat\u2019s what the people of Iran want. So, rather than trying to negotiate a nuclear treaty, which only gives legitimacy to this brutal regime, Americans should be pressuring its political leaders to support the Iranians who want to replace it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VOA \u2014 NEW ORLEANS \u2014 The death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who was detained by the country\u2019s morality police for breaking a rule that mandates females wear hijabs, has sparked nearly two months of protests in every province across Iran. Videos on social media have shown Iranian women lighting their headscarves […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":106836,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106835"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106838,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106835\/revisions\/106838"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}