CBC – Members of the Iranian diaspora in New Brunswick have been celebrating what they see as the beginning of change in their home country, but not without anxiety over how that change will happen.
Tabassom Tallaie moved to Fredericton from Iran about 10 years ago. She said many of her fellow Iranian-born New Brunswickers have mixed feelings about the current war, which began in the early hours of Feb. 28 with air strikes on Iran by the United States and Israel.
But despite concerns over the safety of friends and loved ones in Iran, “the joy is outweighing the stress,” Tallaie said.
Most Iranians have been “dearly and eagerly asking for a foreign assistive intervention,” Tallaie said. “They knew that this was the ultimate way that could give them some hope to overthrow the regime.”
Tallaie gathered with dozens of other New Brunswickers in Miramichi on Feb. 28 to show solidarity with Iranian protesters who have been calling for an end to the 47-year-old Islamic Republic regime.
In January, Iran’s government cracked down violently on protests, killing more than 7,000 people according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. Some Iranian New Brunswickers are convinced the death toll is much higher, in the tens of thousands.
Shayan Faal moved to New Brunswick from Tehran four years ago. He helped organize the Miramichi event to show support for the protesters in Iran.
“They wanted freedom,” Faal said of the protesters across Iran. “They come on the street, have a peaceful gathering, but the government didn’t accept their voices, and they decided to murder them.”
Faal said the crowd in Miramichi raised the historic lion and sun flag of Iran, now used by those opposing the Islamic Republic. About an hour after the flag went up, Faal said the crowd learned that Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, had been killed.
“That made us all happy,” Faal said. “We were crying out of joy, because you can’t imagine how hard it was being under this regime.”
Fariba Breau couldn’t make it to Miramichi but was part of informal gatherings of fellow ex-pat Iranians in Moncton. Breau left Iran in 1983 and eventually found her way to New Brunswick in 2010.
“I was waiting for something like this for so many years,” Breau said. “It’s such a huge emotion that I’m going through.”
“At this moment, you really need to be around people who can understand you, and to support each other emotionally.
“I know it’s really odd to wish for an attack from a foreign country, but people are at this stage where they can’t fight this regime empty-handed, by themselves.”
Contact with friends and family restricted
Meysam Bakhti left Iran in 2021 and now lives in Moncton. Like others, he’s had difficulty staying connected with friends and family in Iran ever since the Islamic Republic restricted internet access in January.
“I have lost contact with my family, but I receive every now and then messages from my friends,” Bakhti said.
In those messages he’s heard that the Iranian regime soldiers are still heavily armed, and making efforts to avoid the strikes by Israel and the U.S.
“The resistance will continue on the part of the regime officials, until they will all be hit by the United States and Israeli missiles and airplanes,” Bakhti said.
Hope for Pahlavi to lead transitional government
Bakhti said a lot now depends on Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former shah of Iran, who is offering to serve as a transitional leader for the country, if the Islamic Republic government falls.
“I think that he’s got a very high chance of running the country,” Bahkti said, until Iranians can “vote for the future system of government.”
Faal said that many in the diaspora agree that Pahlavi is the one to transition Iran away from nearly 50 years of the Islamic Republic. “We have not been united, either in Canada nor in Iran… as we are today,” said Faal.
Breau also believes that Pahlavi is the key to Iran’s future, should the Islamic Republic fall.
“We are not all monarchists,” Breau said, but see Pahlavi as “the safest choice for a transition government.”
Tallaie said she looks forward to a “secular, democratic, people-held regime” for the future of Iran.
Once the current regime reaches its “maximum weakness point” under assault from the U.S. and Israel, “that’s when the people are planning to go back to the streets and claim the government and the power for themselves,” Tallaie said.
The post Joy outweighs stress for Iranian New Brunswickers as Iran war continues appeared first on Human Right Activists In Iran.
