The Islamic Republic’s loyalists on Friday violently attacked a group of Iranian dissidents who were celebrating Ebrahim Raisi’s death in London, injuring at least four people.Images of an Iranian woman beaten to the ground by a man seemingly loyal to the Islamic Republic of Iran is going viral on social media, and the alleged incident didn’t take place in Iran. It happened in the Western world: London, UK. A memorial ceremony to honor late Iranian president Raisi and his entourage who died in a helicopter crash near the Azerbaijan border took place at Dewan Al-Kafeel Community Center in Wembley, London, on Friday.The opponents of Iran’s authoritarian government were standing outside to protest when they were attacked by the loyalists. Confrontations ensued and then screams are heard from a woman yelling for ‘help’ in Persian as several men dressed in black beat up protestors who were waving Iran’s pre-Islamic Revolutionary flag, the Lion and the Sun. The injured woman goes on to yell the name ‘Nika Shakarami’ referring to the 16-year-old Iranian girl, who according to a BBC World report, was violently sexually assaulted and killed by the Islamic Republic’s security forces amid the 2022 uprising sparked by the death of Mahsa Jina Amini.The Met Police in London responded to Iran International in an email, saying “four people were injured and were treated by paramedics. Their injuries are not believed to be either life threatening or life changing.”The Met police said one has been arrested but did not identify if he was Islamic Republic loyalist or not.”One man was arrested on suspicion of violent disorder. Further enquiries will now follow to establish what further offences took place and to identify those involved.”Their investigation will include “an examination of footage shared on social media,” the Met police spokesperson said in the email. Gabriel Noronha, who worked on Iran at the US State Department, said the West has a serious problem. “It’s really grotesque, I think, and it’s a wake-up call for those governments that they need to be more serious about eroding freedoms in their own country and the unchecked power of governments like those around you,” said Noronha to Iran International.Noronha said the infiltration of those loyal to the authoritarian government in Iran is a real threat to the West. “If you don’t push back on foreign repression activities, they’re only going to get more emboldened and more violent here on our soil,” he added. The violence that played out in the streets of London Friday represents a much wider issue of Iran building networks of influence in the Western world according to Noronha. “Islamic Republic has spent an inordinate amount of financial resources, and pressure and planning to build, to build networks in foreign countries, to build advance its interests. The things we are seeing are just the public facing ones. Underneath them are networks of proliferation for the regime’s ballistic missile, drone and nuclear programs. It’s money laundering, for the regime’s terrorism. And ultimately, at the worst, it’s, actual assassin operatives who are there to be able to kill the regime’s critics, or at least bully, intimidate them, to be able to get their critics silenced, both literally and figuratively,” he said. It’s not just in the UK, he said, it applies to the rest of Europe, Canada and the United States. In the US, a ceremony to honor the late President, known as the ‘Butcher of Tehran’ for his alleged role in the 1988 massacre, was held in Michigan.Iranian-American activist Emily Sharif said she was disgusted to see the event on US soil. “When I saw that US citizens were mourning the death of Ebrahim Raisi, I was not only disappointed, but also appalled. You would think that people who left Iran to seek a better life in the United States would not bring the radical ideology of the Islamic Republic in Iran with them,” said Sharif. She tweeted out a photo of the ceremony poster to X, telling Iran International that “those who attended the ceremonies in the US to “honor” and mourn Ebrahim Raisi, are the same individuals who remained silent or even celebrated the death of innocent Iranians killed by the regime in Iran. It’s disgusting and shameful.”
