Approximately 200 people gathered on June 13 in Los Angeles to protest the Iranian government, reported the Jewish Journal.
The crowd rallied in front of the Federal Building on Wilshire Boulevard in a protest advertised as “No to the Islamic Republic of Iran Demonstration.”
Slogans included “Freedom for Iran,” “Down with Islamic Republic” and “President Biden, do not deal with Mullahs.”
Many different groups attended to voice their opposition to the Iranian government and controversial elections that will take place on June 19.
“We have the Jewish community, the Baha’i community, the Muslim community standing against the Islamic Republic of Iran. We’re here today to boycott the sham elections of Iran and say no to the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Arezo Rashidian, a protest organizer, told the Jewish Journal.
Many Iranians see elections in Iran as a hopeless endeavour, with candidate choices ranging from bad to worse, reported Radio Free Europe.
With elections restricted to candidates tightly vetted by the Islamic regime, and a history of failure to follow through on campaign promises, some Iranians say this time they may not bother to vote.
“There is no way I will vote,” a Tehran office manager told the news service. “My vote has never brought any change anyway. Things have only gotten worse.”
Rashidian said that Iranian opposition groups in the US have sought to “expose the regime for its unjust human rights abuses, unjust political prisoners.”
She added her voice to those against the Biden administration’s rejoining the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, that Trump pulled out of in 2018. She referred to the Iranian government as a “terrorist organization” and called on Biden to "Please listen to us. It is our turn to be a voice.”
Zohreh Mizrahi, president of the Persian-American Civic Action Network and past member of the Anti-Defamation League Speaker's Committee, told the Journal that Iranians need to be united against the Islamic Republic. “In the past 42 years, we have experienced nothing but femicide, honor killing[s] and we cannot wait for other nations to come to our rescue. It has to come from us, and we have to stand tall, we have to stand strong against the Islamic Republic.”
She questioned why if it is against US foreign police to negotiate with terrorists, President Joe Biden is not taking “into consideration the human rights of Iranians” the way he does as a “representative of human rights for every other nation.”
She further asked why Biden would want “to negotiate with the financier of all the terrorist organizations?”
“This is against our public policy. It is against what America stands for and it’s going to harm Americans and the national security of this country,” she said.