| ▲ | dreghgh 10 hours ago | |
I live in a major world city with considerable immigrant populations from many parts of the world, and saw some of the pro-Palestine demonstrations yesterday. There were numerous groups of Iranians protesting against Israel's actions and in support of the Palestinians. These are Iranians living abroad so can be expected statistically to be less supportive of the current government than the average Iranian resident. The counter-protest, mainly of pro-Israel demonstrators, this time also had Iranians, demonstrating against the current regime (and broadly in support of Israel). All the Iranian flags in this very small group were the Shah-era design with the lion. The visibly Iranian groups in the pro-Palestinian demo vastly outnumbered the counter protest. They seemed quite ideologically diverse. There were some people holding pictures of the ayatollah with the words 'No Surrender'. But there were also groups with the sign "don't bomb us and claim it's for women's rights" (can't remember exact wording). Groups including women with headscarves, other groups with only bare headed women. As well as the current official flag with the swords, I saw people holding the lion flag, and others with the neutral tricolour without emblem. So at least some of the people present were anti the current regime, but supported the Palestinians in the current conflict. Obviously a very selective sampling for many reasons, but far from what you might expect if almost all Iranians were united against their current government. | ||
| ▲ | hackerknew 5 hours ago | parent [-] | |
People living outside Iran participating in these protests have no idea what they are doing. On the reddit NewIran sub, they were mocking a picture of somebody at one of those rally’s holding a giant IRGC flag… upside-down. I wouldn’t use numbers of “useful idiots” showing up at rallies as a way of demonstrating internal support for the Iranian regime. Surveys suggest around 70-80% are anti-regime, which makes sense considering the regime’s history of hangings and imprisonment for minor offenses. The people of Iran want the regime to end. | ||