More than 100 people gathered in Dublin on Saturday for an event celebrating the death of Iran’s former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Advertised as a protest, the gathering on O’Connell Street was organised by the Freedom for Iran Dublin group.
Among the Iranian flags held aloft by participants near The Spire there were Irish tricolours and American stars and stripes.
Placards were held in support of Reza Pahlavi, the long-exiled son of Iran’s last shah, who the protesters view as the prime candidate to lead a transition to a democratic Iranian state. One sign bearing Pahlavi’s image read “Make Iran Great Again”.
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The group has been active online and protesting since January, when thousands of people were killed during a crackdown on anti-regime protests in Iran.
On its Instagram account, the group described the gathering as an opportunity to “proclaim our deep satisfaction with the blow dealt by the United States and Israel to the Islamic regime”.
Daniel Seyri, one of about a half dozen organisers, was born in the Iranian capital, Tehran, but has been in Ireland for 16 years. He called the event a “counter protest to the people that are saying ‘no war’ and they want America to stop”.
Seyri said his group supports the US and Israel “as long as the air strikes are directed towards the militias that killed the [Iranian protesters in January]”.
Asked about a strike on a girls’ school in southern Iran that is believed to have killed more than 160 people, Seyri said it has not been confirmed who carried out the attack.
“The way I see it, the Iranians have a lot to gain from that publicity and trying to gain support [from the] outside world to stop the American intervention,” he said.”
Across the street, just outside the GPO, a separate gathering saw people carrying signs offering solidarity to the Iranian public. There was also a book of condolence for those killed in the ongoing conflict.
In his address to the gathering, Seyri said he would do everything he could to “stop the far-left and Islamists destroying Ireland like they did to Iran”.
This, he later said, was in reference to the Iranian revolution of 1979 that led to the collapse of the Pahlavi dynasty. In his speech, he was critical of the Irish media and People Before Profit.
Seyri said he does not personally view US president Donald Trump and Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu as saviours, but he believes their countries’ actions in Iran are in the best interests of the Iranian people.
