Hundreds of Iranian-Canadians and opponents of the Islamic Republic regime in Iran gathered at the Vancouver Art Gallery on Saturday as the U.S. and Israeli war on Iran entered its second week. “Today we have gathered again to show our solidarity with the Iranian people and their struggle for freedom,” said Masoud Zamani, a spokesperson for Mission for My Motherland, which organized the rally. “We’re also here to thank the international community—and, in particular, the United States and Israel—for supporting the Iranian people at this critical period in time.” Israeli and Canadian flags dotted the crowd, but the lion and sun flag of pre-revolution Iran was the predominant symbol on display. Zamani and others who participated in Saturday’s rally are supporters of Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last shah, who has been in exile since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Pahlavi has said he wants to lead his country on a transition to democracy, but U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed a preference for “somebody from within” Iran currently. In the meantime, though former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been killed, the regime remains in place and defiant against Trump’s demand for unconditional surrender. Participants in last weekend’s rally at the art gallery, which was organized by a different group, expressed skepticism about U.S. intervention in Iran, while still celebrating Khamenei’s death. “The overthrow of this regime has to be done by the people of Iran, by the resistance units inside Iran and the future of Iran is in the hands of the Iranian people and the organized resistance,” Zhaleh Nangir, director of the Free Iran Movement Association in Vancouver, told CTV News last weekend. “We have a long way to go.”
