Los Angeles – Thousands of protesters, including students on visas from Iran and concerned Iranian Americans, gathered at the Federal Building on Wilshire Avenue on Sunday as a part of a worldwide protest against the rigged presidential election in Iran. Iran announced Saturday that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected president with 63 percent of the vote, defeating Mir Hossein Mousavi and Sheikh Karoubi and Mr. Rezaei. The margin of victory was greeted with skepticism and protests in the Islamic state and throughout the world. In Iran, the government has cracked down on protesters and has tried to stop the media from reporting on the unrest. In Westwood, protesters with varying political view gathered to unite against fraud and shouted both in English and Farsi phrases such as: “Where are our votes?”, “Count our votes!”, “Death to Taleban, both in Kabol and in Tehran”, “Democracy for Iran”, “Freedom for Everyone”. The crowd gathered at the Federal Building, across the street from the Los Angeles National Cemetery and around the corner from the Little Tehran neighborhood, a strip of Westwood Boulevard that has become the retail center of the large population of Iranians in Los Angeles, Beverly Hills and the San Fernando Valley. Protesters stretched down Wilshire Boulevard from the Federal Building to Veteran Avenue, where police kept order. No arrests were reported. “We believe that there has been major fraud in this election, and demand re-election supervised by United Nations representatives”, said several of the student group representatives that organized the event. This peaceful protest ended by recital of the most famous patriotic Iranian song “Ey Iran”. 123 next › last » 
