News

The rain made the entire park look miserable, but that wasn’t enough to keep a determined group of Iranian activists in Lafayette Park Thursday night from protesting the Iran regime’s executions and oppression.

Only about 15 activists made it out, but even as fat raindrops fell on their shoulders they set up signs across from the White House and brandished photos of political prisoners condemned to death by the regime on posters.

“I firmly believe that if we let the regime execute these seven [political prisoners], there will follow the mass murder of political prisoners,” said Shirin Nariman, the spokeswoman for the Virginia Branch of the Council for Democratic Change in Iran and former political prisoner, who helped lead the D.C. protest.

“We must fight with the regime,” she said.

At the same time as the protest in Washington, 17 cities around the world – from Tbilisi, Georgia to Glasglow, Scotland – held similar protests for the sake of seven Iranians sentenced to death for ties to the Iranian resistance.

Three of the sentenced – Jafar Kazemi, Ali Sarami and Ali Hoj Aghaei – just had their sentences upheld last week, and their deaths are “imminent,” Ms. Nariman said.