Soccer fans sent a message to Washington on Iran deal or no deal
Two games were being played at Los Angeles Stadium on June 15.The first was the Islamic Republic’s World Cup match against New Zealand, its first of the tournament.
The second was being played outside, where the Iranian American community organized a large anti-regime demonstration.Many in the diaspora were not there to watch soccer.They had come to confront the regime on the only piece of American soil where they could, and to send a message to Washington.
The Memorandum of Understanding may have been signed with Iran, but the Iranian people have not signed onto it.The protesters carried signs that said “42,000.” That is the number of Iranians reportedly killed by the Islamic Republic in January, documented by human rights organizations.They passed out T-shirts with the faces of the young men and women rounded up during the January uprisings, tried in revolutionary courts behind closed doors and executed.I have covered this community for more than two decades.
This was not protest theater.They were there to make a policy statement the only way the diaspora can.The crowd chanted for King Reza Pahlavi.
They chanted death to the Islamic Republic.They chanted “terrorist” at the regime’s representatives walking into the stadium.
They flew the pre-revolutionary Lion and Sun flag the regime calls illegitimate.FIFA, at the regime’s request, had tried to ban it inside the stadium.Iranian American advocacy organizations appealed through FIFA’s own process and lost.
They went to federal court seeking a restraining order and lost again.The diaspora was told, in effect, that on US soil during an American-hosted tournament, the symbolic preferences of the Islamic Republic outweighed the First Amendment rights of Iranian Americans.They came anyway.
They brought the flags anyway.Tehran was watching.
So was Washington.Every previous US administration has negotiated with the regime while ignoring the needs, human rights and security of the Iranian people.The...