Iran protests typically trigger demonstrations in LA, here’s why

The hundreds of people who demonstrated in Westwood on Sunday in support of regime change in Iran were just the latest example of how L.A. is home to one of the largest populations of Iranian immigrants in the country.

Spurred by rising inflation against the backdrop of sanctions reimposed by the United Nations, thousands of people have been protesting the current regime in Iran for weeks now. In the process, outside observers say hundreds of people have been killed, sparking international condemnation.

So it’s no surprise that the developments have spurred action in a region where more than one in three Iranian immigrants call the Los Angeles area home.

One of them is Reza, who asked that his last name not be used for fear that his parents could face retribution in Iran. Since Thursday, he has not been able to reach them because the government cut off internet and phone services as protests escalated.

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“My heart is very heavy and I am worried about my parents,” he said.

Reza said he's also carrying  ”a lot of grief because of some pictures and images (that) are emerging that shows the bodies of people, a lot of people have been killed.”

Making sense of the SoCal protests

Sahar Razavi, associate professor of political science at Sacramento State and director of its Iranian and Middle Eastern Studies Center, told LAist’s AirTalk program on Monday that each time there’s an uprising or a mass protest movement in Iran, “it begins as a spark,” and then it “very quickly transforms into wide scale, broad-based calls for transformation of the system.”

One of those calling for a system change is Reza Pahlavi, the exiled crown prince and son of the former Shah, who uses his social media platforms to encourage protests. He has also encouraged the use of the country’s old lion and sun flag and other symbols from when his father was in power to "claim public spaces as your own."

Razavi said Iranians are a diverse group — politically, socially and ethnically.

 ”Within the broad Iranian diaspora, Iranian monarchists are overrepresented in the Los Angeles area. So we see quite a lot of pro-Shah, pro-Pahlavi protests in L.A. that may not necessarily be representative of Iranians across the rest of the country and the world,” she said.

Images from this weekend’s protest in Westwood mostly show people waving the lion and sun flag. Others carried signs calling for the reinstatement of Pahlavi as a leader.

Those who want to see a return to monarchist rule, Razavi said, tend to be people who had the means to flee after the Iranian revolution because “ there is a perception that there would be a restoration of the economy.” But, she said, for rural Iranians, the economic situation was very dire.

 Other prominent factions include leftists, secular Democrats and liberals who call for a secular democracy, free of monarchist influence, Razavi said. Another group who has been seen as an alternative to the current government is Mojahedin-e-Khalq, a leftist dissident group, she added.

Razavi said ethnic minorities like Kurds fear returning to monarchist rule  because “they have a very long history of marginalization of Iranian minority communities.”

Military intervention 

Razavi told AirTalk there are some people who live in Iran who welcome military intervention from the Trump administration or Israel.

But the majority of protesters in Iran, she said, “ are very vocal that they do not want to have any foreign intervention because Iran has a very long history of outside intervention, which has stalled or outright reversed its democratic movements and institutions in the past.”

Reza also worries about military escalation by the U.S. and how that might lead to a failed state in the country. In an ideal world, he added, a new government would be chosen and led by the people.

“ I just want people inside Iran to have a normal life,"Reza said. "They have security, they have an outlook to the future. They have financial security. They have very basic human rights that all humans need to thrive and flourish.”