Saturday, June 20, 2009

Iranian Election Protest in Los Angeles

I spent part of the day at the protest here in Los Angeles. We have one of the largest Persian populations in the US. Just a few photos out of the hundreds that I took...



The demonstration was very peaceful (obviously). Overall, a lot of bonding going on - some very pretty girls and everybody was wearing very expensive sunglasses ;)

Something very interesting happnened however. A lady approached me speaking Farsi as I was taking pictures. I don't know Farsi and told her so. She wanted to know what I was doing there and after I explained that I was just interested in the demonstration and wanted to photograph the event, she told me that she had reported me to the event coordinators. It seems that she thought I was a member of the Iranian Republic because of my beard! She wound up giving me one of the green "Iran" t-shirts you see them all wearing immediately afterward and cautioned me about overheating once I put it on over my current shirt... she is a very sweet lady.

Here's a very grainy video I took with my phone... HONK FOR FREEDOM!!!



I think I need a better camcorder...

3 comments:

libhom said...

They have reason to be suspicious. The secret police could harass their relatives in Iran.

Comrade Kevin said...

I hope this translates to lasting reform in Iran. I fear it will not.

puddy said...

libhom - you point is well taken. paranoia = hightened perception in times like these.

ck - i've been feeling the same way. the loss of human life is bad enough - it would be completely senseless to accomplish nothing after all of this.