Iranians unite in peaceful protest

The Brooklyn Bridge was decked out in green yesterday as hundreds of activists protested Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and challenged the legitimacy of Iran's recent election.

Ahmadinejad, who is in New York to attend the United Nations Summit this week, has been accused of violently suppressing peaceful protest and rigging the election in his favor.

The protest, which was organized by Voices 4 Iran, carried the Green Scrolls across the Bridge. Individual pieces of green fabric composed the Green Scrolls, which stretched for a mile. Tens of thousands of signatures from supporters all over the country are written on the fabric. Green has become the symbol of peaceful protest against the elections.

The protesters, covered in shades of green, were almost all Iranian immigrants living in the U.S. and Canada. Most were middle-aged or older. Communication among the protesters was, for the most part, done in Farsi.

Each of the green scrolls was approximately 40 feet long, carried by four supporters above the activists' heads. Others led chants and carried homemade signs, reaching out to touch the banners while they marched.

Kevin Bandari, 60, flew from Los Angeles to New York to protest. Bandari is originally from Iran.

He said in broken English: "We're here in New York because Ahmadinejad is [at the U.N.] as a representative of Iran. But the people of Iran doesn't recognize this guy."

He added: "We Iranians are trying to show the whole world what is going on in Iran. He is not our president."

Bandari, who now owns a gas station and car wash, said he was a consulting engineer working with water systems, dams and plumbing.

Another protester, Farhad Soofi (who said he usually uses a Westernized name, "Fred"), heard Bandari describe his past.

"If you're an engineer, why don't you flush Ahmadinejad?" Soofi said and the two men laughed.

One of the younger protesters was Tara Alaghaband, 21. She flew from Vancouver, where she is a student at Langara College. She grew up in Tehran and left five years ago for school.

Alaghaband said flying to New York for the protest was extremely important. She said she feels that, being outside Iran, all she can do is raise awareness and try to get media attention for the cause.

"We can't do anything but carry on their voices," she said.

As a college student, the financial burden to fly to New York for the protest was a big one.

But she said, "I'm going into debt, but [that isn't] anything compared to what the people in Iran are going through."

Jane C. Timm is a senior editor.