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Two Iranian-born Philadelphians head to NYC to protest Ahmadinejad
With President Ahmadinejad set to speak before the UN General Assembly today at 5 p.m., scores of Iranian ex-pats will take to the streets of New York City with a rally, starting around 4 p.m., that will continue throughout his speech.
Two Iranian-born Philadelphians head to NYC to protest Ahmadinejad
With President Ahmadinejad set to speak before the UN General Assembly today at 5 p.m., scores of Iranian ex-pats will take to the streets of New York City with a rally, starting around 4 p.m., that will continue throughout his speech.
Among them will be local university students Ali and Kayhan, who took part as well in a demonstration at Rittenhouse Square in June, to protest against the Iranian election results.
Conceding that he has no hope of having the recent election overturned, with nearly two months having passed since Ahmadinejad took the oath of office, Ali says the "overall goal is [to] keep pressure on the government, with the first goal being to have the political prisoners released." While they certainly want to reinforce the message in the West that they don’t consider him a legitimate president, "it's more to do with addressing the human rights violations, the rapes in prisons, the shutdown of newspapers, the murders during the protests, and those that followed within the prisons."
Kayhan adds that people within Iran have transformed post-soccer match celebrations into anti-government rallies. In terms of his countrymen back home, he says, "Many of the people, we feel it is a majority, feel he is illegitimate and that he has committed many misconducts. Psychologically it affects us since we can't take part in protests in Iran. Through this protest we are able to take part, to make sure people do not forget."
The two are somewhat worried that their own message might get lost amid the many protesters focusing on the Iranian president's denials of the holocaust and promise to wipe Israel off the map.
Emphasizing that they support these protests as well, Kayhan simply adds that "we have our own agenda to talk about as a people."
Kayhan is organizing a panel discussion through UPenn’s Middle Eastern Center for mid to late October in the hopes of continuing the dialogue on the Iranian elections. This coming Tuesday, Sept. 29, UPenn hosts New York Times journalist and Iranian correspondent Roger Cohen.
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