Sea of protesters show solidarity with women of Iran in central London
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A crowd gathers in Trafalgar Square in central London this afternoon in solidarity with the anti-government protests in Iran.
Hundreds of protesters marched through central London from Marble Arch and set up a stage next to Nelson’s Column, draped in pre-revolutionary Iranian flags.
Protests have escalated inside and outside Iran since a 22-year-old Iranian woman, Masha Amini, died in police custody in Tehran in September 2022 after being arrested for allegedly violating strict hijab rules.
January 8, 2023 also marks the third anniversary of the shooting down of the Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 civilian airliner by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps amid tensions between Iran and the United States.
Protesters take shelter from the rain under pre-revolutionary Iranian flags, changed in 1980
Masha Amini died in Tehran hospital after her arrest by Iranian police for violating hijab rules
Protesters are seen in London waving flags of Iran used before the 1979 Islamic Revolution
Protester calling for Reza Shah II for Iran, referring to the secular Pahlavi dynasty (1925-79)
On Friday, the Iranian regime executed two more men, officially convicted of allegedly killing a paramilitary volunteer during a demonstration.
Activists in Iran claim at least 517 have been killed and more than 19,200 arrested since the riots began.
In recent weeks, Iran has increased resistance to a global protest movement, sparked by the death of Ms. Amini in September 2022.
Despite reports that the ‘morality police’, or Guidance Patrols, had halted patrols and hijab enforcement in December 2022, police officers in Iran confirmed last week that the morality police would enforce a new hijab scheme.
In the year to March 2014, the latest for which data is available, patrols detained almost 3 million women for not wearing the hijab according to the rules.
Protesters gather at Marble Arch in central London before marching on Trafalgar Square.
Protesters demonstrate against the crackdown on women’s rights in Iran, in Perth on January 8, 2023.
Protests in Bonn yesterday to mark the third anniversary of the downing of flight PS752
The worldwide protests were sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini from Kurdistan, who was arrested by the morality police in Tehran saying she was not wearing her hijab correctly.
Protesters gather at Marble Arch in central London before marching on Trafalgar Square.
Masha Amini slipped into a coma after being arrested in Tehran and died in hospital on September 16, 2022.
Islamic Republic officials told the media that Amini suffered a heart attack while in custody by “morality police”, denying reports that she had been beaten.
Iranian rights activists have urged women to publicly remove their headscarves, risking arrest for defying the Islamic dress code.
Protesters in London waved the pre-revolutionary Iranian flag and called for the Mashroote and Reza Shah II Constitution for Iran.
Mashroote’s Constitution refers to the Persian Constitutional Revolution in English, a revolution in Iran between 1905 and 1911 that created a parliament in then-Persia.
Reza Shah II refers to the son of Reza Shah Pahlavi, the Westernized Iranian head of state between 1925 and 1979.
In 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini deposed the Shah and Iran was declared an Islamic Republic.
The first modern ‘morality police’ units developed in Saudi Arabia in 1926, and similar squads tasked with enforcing dress codes and prayer attendance have since sprung up around the world.
Iran adopted its own ‘morality police’ after the advent of the 1979 revolution to clamp down on behavior deemed inappropriate after a period of secularization until the mid-20th century.
Protesters pose in a mock gallows as they gather in central London on Sunday, January 8, 2023.
Protesters wave flags on the third anniversary of the downing of the Ukrainian airliner, Flight PS752, by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shortly after its takeoff from Tehran.
Protesters gathered at the Muenster square in Bonn, Germany, yesterday afternoon.
The delivery at the Iranian Embassy in Rome of the signatures collected by the newspaper La Stampa to protest against the death sentences and violence against demonstrators in Iran