‘At first I cried’: How Iranian Canadians are reacting to the U.S. strikes in Iran

For Sedi Minachi – who has organized protests and rallies in Vancouver in recent weeks – and numerous other Iranian Canadians, the strikes were a positive event.

“I can’t stop being happy,” she said at a rally in Vancouver on Feb. 28. “I just, at first, I cried, I couldn’t believe it. I feel like the nightmare after 47 years is finishing, almost finishing. We still haven’t heard the news of the collapse of the regime, but I look forward to it.”

In Kamloops, it was no different as community members gathered on both days of the weekend. There was singing and dancing coupled with chants and honking horns on both days as news filtered in of Khamenei’s apparent death.

“People are feeling their happiness that they’ve always expected to feel,” Kamloops resident Ali Alizadeh said Sunday. “We are sad for the ones who are dead, the ones who are killed and who are imprisoned and exiled, but we are happy this oppression and repression is going to come to an end.”

Alizadeh says while many members of the Iranian diaspora are optimistic about a regime change, the situation is far from resolved. He also fears their will be some killings in Iran in the days ahead as there is limited information flowing out of the country.

“I believe its going to be a little bit horrific again,” he said. “Something tells me again we’re going to witness stuff against human rights and humanism. Possibly, this is happening right now.”

Iranians fed up with corruption, economic mismanagement and repressive religious rules in their country have been rallying since late last year. The Iranian regime had been cracking down on those demonstrations against the government.

Iran’s government, which implemented an internet blackout, said in mid-February that more than 3,000 people had been killed since the protests broke out. But the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in counting deaths during previous rounds of unrest in Iran, put the death toll at more than 7,000.

There have been several demonstrations in numerous countries, including the U.S. and Canada.

On Feb. 14, hundreds of thousands of people marched through Toronto, with similar protests held in Vancouver and other cities.

But on Saturday and Sunday, different rallies were held – ones of celebration.

Shermineh Esmati Novak, a co-organizer of Saturday’s rally in Toronto, said there’s “much excitement.”

“It’s just a sense of, you know, we accomplished something,” she told Global News. “There is an element of unity.”

Esmati Novak acknowledged some people may find it “strange” for wanting military intervention, but “I think we’re all hoping for it to happen.”

“We really want military aggression from the United States, because this regime won’t leave unless you bring in real dominant military power to take them out,” she said.

Ardeshir Zarezadeh, a former Iranian political prisoner who fled to Canada, said the U.S.-Israel attack is a best-case scenario for both Iranians seeking an end to government repression, as well as Western powers aiming to halt Iran’s nuclear program.

“If there is a free country … there will be no nuclear bomb,” Zarezadeh said. “It will be beneficial for everyone in the Middle East and obviously for international peace.”

Zarezadeh, who is now president of the Toronto-based International Centre for Human Rights, called the killing of protesters in Iran a “crime against humanity” and said the international community had a duty to step in.

But some Iranian Canadians say they are concerned about the actions by the U.S. and Israel, even if it means the end of the Iranian regime.

“Interventions when they come from foreign governments don’t work in favour of the national sovereignty of Iran,” said Mona Ghassemi, president of the Iranian Canadian Congress.

Ghassemi noted with the president still alive and a temporary council, the current government has not yet fallen, but she’s unsure what could come if the regime were to fall.

“If that government were to fall, I would be concerned about what would come in its place with these foreign interventions, because what the United States and Israel likely want would be a government that would be subservient to their demands,” she added.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said in a prerecorded message that a new leadership council “has begun its work” of finding a new leader.

There remains some concern among Iranian Canadians for their loved ones at home, Esmati Novak told Global News. Yet Ali Hassan Abadi, who attended Saturday’s rally in Toronto, said he believes that could change.

“When we hear the first news, we excited, we shocked, we celebrate,” he said. “We hope the fear is done, fear is gone very soon.”

Added Alizadeh, “I can say that in a new free Iran nobody will talk about enemies, nobody will take about threats, nobody will talk about extremism or radicalism.”

“In Iran, there is going to be diversity back again. There is going to be peace.”

– With files from Victor Kaisar/CFJC Today

by Sean Previl/Global News

‘At first I cried’: How Iranian Canadians are reacting to the U.S. strikes in Iran

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