Iranian Americans in Los Angeles Friday supported anti-government protesters in their native homeland by organizing their own demonstrations and demanding regime change amid Iran’s struggling economy and decades of political oppression.
After more than 40 people in Iran were killed during the ongoing protests, a wave of nationwide unrest has intensified in the Middle East nation, and dozens of people from the Iranian diaspora community in LA gathered outside the Sherman Oaks Galleria Friday.
Among the LA demonstrators was Tima, whose entire family is still in Iran. She decried that her family and friends are living in fear amid Iran’s crackdown.
As the Islamic country faces the biggest challenge to the regime in years, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei shut down the internet and prohibited international phone calls from entering the country.
“I’m here to be their voice,” Tima said. “I know you don’t have your voice right now because (the) regime shut down your voice. I’m saying regime change in Iran.”
Benjamin Radd, a professor at UCLA’s International Institute, said rampant inflation and economic uncertainties have triggered the widespread protests.
“We’re seeing severe hyperinflation (and) the devaluation of the Iranian currency,” Radd explained. “For example, you’ll have a shopkeeper or an employee on a salary getting paid on a Friday, and by Monday, the value of what they can buy has dropped significantly.”
He also said consolidated wealth amongst the elite few left parts of the Iranian middle and working classes struggling to make ends meet with a devaluing currency.
President Donald Trump has threatened to attack Iran if violent crackdowns continue. In an interview with Fox News, Trump said, “I told them, if they do anything bad to these people, we’re going to hit them very hard.”
In response, Khamenei has accused Iranian protesters of acting on behalf of Trump, saying they were “ruining their own streets to make the president of another country happy.”
But some Iranians, including Mohammed Adeli at the Sherman Oaks protest, said they hoped the U.S. would intervene, finally putting an end to Iran’s authoritarianism.
“I’m worried about all the young people, old people, the situation in Iran,” Adeli, who fled Iran in 1985, said. “Iran is a really rich country. And right now, we are at the stage that everybody is poor.”
The largest protest of the weekend is expected to take place on Sunday at 2 p.m. at the federal building in downtown LA.
Los Angeles is home to the world’s largest Iranian population outside of Iran.