A protester on Saturday carried the Iranian flag with the words “Women, life, freedom,” the slogan adopted by many Iranians in the mass movement against the regime following the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022 after her arrest by Iran’s morality police.
Parsa said that he and many other Iranian and Iranian-Americans are “not naive,” and don’t believe that regime change will come from Israel’s war on the country.
“We just want a stop to the war, but we also want people to know that there is a rhetoric at the left right now, that Islamic Republic is somehow the Axis of Resistance, but people forget that they’re also killing their populace,” he said. “They’re killing their own people. So we just want to bring awareness that Islamic Republic is not good, Israel is not good, and those two facts can … coexist, and they just have to understand that.”
Parsa said he and other volunteers with Philly Iranians are hosting a “hamdeli,” a Farsi word which means “shared heart,” as a gathering for emotional support for the Iranian diasporic community in Philadelphia’s Washington Square Park.
“I just want people to know that Iranian people are kind,” Parsa said. “I think we can move past this regime and these times, as long as people actually see us as what we are, as these kind loving people that we are.”
Editor’s Note: This story was updated to reflect a quote from State Sen. Nikil Saval, D-Philadelphia, who said “no war with Iran.”