Marches in Europe support Iran protests, assail government

LYON, France (AP) — A whole lot of individuals marched Sunday in France to honor an Iranian Kurdish man who took his personal life in a determined act of anguish over the nationwide protests in Iran.

French police estimated the scale of the gang that gathered for Mohammad Moradi at about 1,000 folks. They marched within the metropolis of Lyon, the place the 38-year-old Moradi took his personal life in December, drowning within the Rhone river.

In movies in Farsi and French recorded earlier than his dying, Moradi criticized Iran’s management and referred to as for solidarity from Western governments towards it. The recordings featured him saying, “While you see this video, I will likely be useless.”

The protesters Sunday marched with placards that learn “cease executions in Iran” and different slogans. Some traveled from different elements of France.

A whole lot of protesters additionally gathered in Rome and London in help of the Iranian protest motion.

Moradi arrived in France in 2019 together with his spouse and was pursuing a Ph.D. in historical past. His dying resonated among the many Iranian diaspora.

“Mohammad took his life with unimaginable braveness,” mentioned Lili Mohadjer, one of many Lyon march organizers, who addressed the gang. “His hope was that the media and Western governments proceed to help the Iranian folks.”

The protests in Iran started in mid-September, over the dying of Mahsa Amini. The 22-year-old girl died after being arrested by Iran’s morality police for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict gown code.

Girls have performed a number one position within the protests, with many publicly eradicating the obligatory Islamic headband, generally known as the hijab.

Sunday’s marchers in Lyon shouted Moradi’s identify. Additionally they noticed a minute of silence for him and for 2 males that Iran mentioned it executed on Saturday for allegedly killing a paramilitary volunteer throughout an indication.

Iran’s judiciary recognized these executed as Mohammad Mehdi Karami and Mohammad Hosseini, making it 4 males recognized to have been executed because the demonstrations started in September. All have confronted internationally criticized, fast, closed-door trials.

The Lyon marchers additionally paid homage to victims of the capturing down of a Ukrainian passenger airplane in 2020 that killed 176 folks. Iran’s army mistakenly downed Ukraine Worldwide Airways Flight PS752 with two surface-to-air missiles.

In London, protesters waved Iran’s pre-revolutionary flag as they marched to Trafalgar Sq. and carried banners with photos of demonstrators killed by the Islamic Republic’s authorities. They chanted “girl, life, freedom,” a slogan of the Iranian motion.

Exterior the Iranian Embassy in Rome, demonstrators chanted “killers!” and stacked up packing containers outdoors its closed doorways containing signed petitions.

The Turin each day La Stampa spearheaded the gathering of 300,000 signatures towards what it decried as “unjust incarcerations, torture, dying sentences of these in Iran demonstrating peacefully to vary their very own nation.”

Turin and different Italian cities and cities additionally noticed protests towards Iran’s crackdown.

Among the many demonstrators in Rome was opposition lawmaker Mara Carfagna. In a tweet, Carfagna decried the dying sentences and “the brutal repression towards girls and younger folks.” She requested Premier Giorgia Meloni to press for a European Union initiative when the Italian chief meets in Rome on Monday with European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen.

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Frances D’Emilio in Rome, Jill Lawless in London, and John Leicester in Le Pecq, France, contributed to this report.

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This story contains dialogue of suicide. For those who or somebody you recognize wants assist, please name 988 within the U.S. or contact 988lifeline.org. Helplines in different international locations will be discovered on befrienders.org.