Iranians across North America take to the streets for - and against - strikes

A group of protestors gathered near the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa to show their support for the U.S. and Israel’s attack on Iran. CTV’s Austin Lee reports.

Iranians in Los Angeles took to the streets to cheer the death of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Saturday, joining protests in support of the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran across the North American diaspora.

In the West Coast city, singing and ululating protesters marched with flags of Shah-era Iran, carrying posters bearing U.S. President Donald Trump’s image and wearing shirts that said “Free Iran,” an AFP reporter saw.

Their protest came as Trump said Saturday afternoon the strikes had killed Khamenei, though many marches started earlier in the day when news of the bombings first broke.

“It’s mixed feelings,” Fartach Razmjoo told AFP at a demonstration in Toronto.

“It seems this brutal regime is going to be gone, but at the same time I am very concerned about the people in Iran.”

Razmjoo said he hoped the “people in Iran now get the courage to get in the street and try to overthrow” the government.

Trump made similar calls, urging Iranians to rise up and “take over your government.”

Iran has yet to confirm Khamenei’s death.

But at an anti-war protest in New York, people expressed skepticism about the strikes, which Trump has vowed to continue “as long as necessary.”

Layan Fuleihan, a 36 year-old activist, told AFP: “Bombing people does not help them free themselves.”

“If Trump cared about democracy or if he cared about the well-being of Iranian people, he would have lifted the brutal sanctions on the Iranian economy that have made it impossible for everyday working Iranians to find enough to put food on their table,” she said.

Brent Gray, a 27-year-old engineer in the U.S. capital Washington, said Trump was “taking military action without any congressional approval.”

‘Very complicated feelings’

The scene couldn’t have been more different in Boston, where protesters sang and stomped on an Iranian flag, while waving American flags and at least one Israeli flag.

“Iranians can finally get to live the free life that they want,” Navid Aghasadeghi told AFP.

“We don’t call it a war. We call it the Iran Rescue Operation,” said Sherry Yadegari, a 42-year-old artist in the southern city of Atlanta.

Azi Adibi, 45, also in Atlanta said she was worried about family in Iran, having been unable to reach her brother since “the internet got cut off.”

Roozbeh Farahanipour, a restaurant owner in Los Angeles’s Westwood neighbourhood -- sometimes known as “Tehrangeles” or Little Persia -- told AFP he has “very complicated feelings.”

“I saw the footage of people dancing in the streets,” the 54-year-old said. “That reminded me of the first days of the war in Iraq. At the time, the people of Iraq were also dancing in the streets.”

“I hope the scenario will be different this time,” he said.

By Loic Pialat with Michael Mathes in Washington and Cecilia Sanchez in New York