Iranian of the Day

On Tuesday award-winning Iranian-born blogger Potkin Azarmehr (sitting to my right in above video) and I went to the House Of Commons to protest at a public meeting, organised by Stop The War Coalition, where Respect MP George Galloway (pictured, with Azarmehr opposite) was to speak.

The meeting set out to defend the rights of protestors at last year’s Gaza marches in London who have been given harsh sentences by UK courts. With the backdrop of months of violence in Iran against peaceful demonstrators, we thought it would be apt to highlight Mr Galloway’s silence about human rights abuses in Iran, well documented by Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and for that matter, YouTube.

Mr Galloway’s links with Press TV are well known — an organisation that is a mouthpiece for the Islamic Republic.

My fearless companion didn’t waste time before heckling Mr Galloway and I chipped in too although I was very nervous knowing that we were in the Commons and there were police everywhere.

Mr Galloway, pointing to Azarmehr, said this man wants do arrest me and warned him not to (the Open Democracy piece ‘Arrest Galloway’ was actually penned by me). “I wouldn’t if I were you,” I think were his words.

I was surprised and impressed by Azarmehr’s boldness. When Mr Galloway told him the chair next to him was taken he said: “It’s as close as I can get to the Supreme Leader.”

I really wanted to be in the back row but here we were in the front– what a dude >>>