28th December 2019 - Anglo-Iranian Communities, from across the UK, including AWYAF, attended a rally outside Number 10 Downing Street to commemorate the 40th continuous day of Iran protests and the killing of over 1,500 protestors. They honoured the martyrs who gave their life for freedom and the thousands who have been arrested; many who face torture and imminent execution.
Since mid-November, there have been mass protests in near 200 cities across Iran. The Iranian regimes suppressive forces responded with a brutal crackdown that included live random and indiscriminate shootings of peaceful defenceless protestors.
Over 1,500 peaceful protestors were killed, and 12,000 protestors of all ages and ethnic backgrounds are currently imprisoned in Iran’s notorious jails without legal representation and other basic rights.
Members of the Anglo-Iranian communities took part in this important rally outside Downing Street, to urge the UK Government and its international allies in the EU and UN to hold the Iranian regime to account for its inhumane crimes against the peaceful Iranian protestors.
Members of youth associations and singers and artists spoke at the rally to demand an increased international pressure on Iran to immediately release over 12,000 protestors; to ask the UN Secretary-General and its High Commissioner for Human Rights to dispatch a fact-finding mission to Iran immediately so to investigate the extent of the killings and visit detention centres to monitor any mistreatment of prisoners in cases of torture and forced confessions; and finally to ask the UN Security Council to declare the massacre of the Iranian protestors as a crime against humanity, and bring those who are responsible for these crimes, including President Hassan Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, to international tribunals so to be held accountable.
The Iranian regime has desperately tried to prevent more protests on this landmark 40th day anniversary by shutting down the internet and restricting mobile networks so to disrupt protests and to hide the regimes brutal crackdown. However, the Iranian people in defiance are to commemorate the deaths of protestors with courage and plan to continue their uprising against this authoritarian regime so to topple the Ayotollahs and bring freedom and democracy to their country.
