Barnet Iranians protest in Downing Street in solidarity with Students' Day protests

2:25pm Monday 7th December 2009

By Sarah Cosgrove

ANGLO-Iranians are protesting in Downing Street in solidarity with students in Iran.

Today is Students' Day in Iran and a series of protests have been organised in universities across the country.

Saeed Abed, 54, from Watford Way in Hendon, spokesman for Iranian dissidents in London said he expected bloody clashes today.

“It is anticipated that in 50 cities and 200 universities protests and demonstrations will take place. Students will be trying to get out of the universities so people can join them."

Mobile phone networks have been cut off and foreign media have been banned from covering the annual event, which commemorates the killing of three students under the former shah in 1953.

Several Iranians and British people of Iranian descent who live in Barnet have joined a protest of around 80 people outside 10 Downing Street today.

The protesters want to show their support for the protesters in Iran but are also urging our Government to adopt a stronger approach to the regime.

Mr Abed said he thought the British Government should be concerned about Iran's pursuit of nuclear technology.

“This policy of appeasement should change and this would open the way for the people of Iran to have a democratic change.

“I think Prime Minister Brown should look at this regime before it's too late. If this continues there will be a huge war between the west and this regime.”

Law student Sina Adhami of Srith Court, Mill Hill was born in Britain to parents who fled the regime 21 years ago and said he longs for a regime change in Iran so he can live there.

“I've never been to Iran but I've seen the students in Iran and how they don't have the same freedoms, I just want them to have the same as we do and to have democracy so I'm trying to be as active as I can.

“Nobody wants a dictatorship. I feel that really in my heart, it's something I believe in.”

Mr Adhami's said his best friend's father died while in prison and he has other friends who have parents in Camp Ashraf, an autonomous resistance community based in Iraq.

Student Souedbeh Heidari, 19, one of the Barnet residents who went on hunger strike in earlier this year to call for UN and US to intervene for the release of Iranian hostages taken from the camp, is also at today's protest.

She said she cared deeply about those in the camp and said she was calling for freedom and democracy.

She said: “Many of the people who demonstrated in Iran in June are in prison waiting for execution. Many of them are relatives of people in Camp Ashraf.

“We should protest about what's going on so make politicians open their eyes."

Miss Heidari of Engel Park, Hendon, came to Britain two years ago after her father, a political dissident, was released from prison after being held for seven years.

She said Camp Ashraf, which has its own radio and television station, inspired people inside Iran and allowed them to hope that change was possible.