Showing solidarity on Iran - Hundreds protest disputed election with downtown Dallas

Published by Dallas Morning News- July 10, 2009

By DAWSON WILLIAMS

About 600 people gathered in downtown Dallas on Thursday to protest Iran's recent election and to commemorate the 10th anniversary of an Iranian student uprising.

Iranian flags fluttered and chants of "United Nations, pay more attention!" and "Obama, Obama! Attention, attention!" rang out during the protest, outside the Earle Cabell Federal Building on Commerce Street.

"We got enough [participants] so that we could show a lot of people downtown what's going on in Iran," said Reza Alizadeh, one of the rally's organizers.

The marchers carried a flag-draped coffin bearing pictures of Neda Agha Soltan, the Iranian woman whose death on the streets of Tehran attracted worldwide attention last month. She was shot, apparently by a member of the Iranian militia, during a protest over that country's disputed presidential election. Her death was captured by an amateur videographer, and the gruesome footage was widely circulated on the Internet.

Most of the marchers were of Iranian descent, but a handful were not. Constanza Garcia, who was born in South America, said she attended because she hadn't been as supportive during Iran's pro-freedom student uprising in July 1999. "We can't stand by and let the government keep killing innocent people," she said.