Another massive pro-Iranian regime protest took place in central London on Saturday, featuring posters of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with the words “Choose the right side of history,” and “hands off Iran” chants.
The demonstration – coordinated by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign – combined the weekly pro-Palestine march with a pro-regime one. The Metropolitan Police told The Jerusalem Post that around 15,000 people took part.
While pro-Palestine marches have taken place almost every Saturday in London since October 7, this is only the second consecutive Saturday in which the Palestinian flag appeared alongside the Iranian regime flag.
Alongside the Khamenei posters were others labeled “Free Palestine, hands off Iran” and “stop bombing Iran.”
Addressing crowds, British MP Zarah Sultana said, “It is not a conflict, it is not self-defense, it is genocide.” She also demanded the “expulsion of the Israeli ambassador, the end of all diplomatic relations with the genocidal apartheid state of Israel.”
Former Scottish first minister Humza Yousaf also embarked on a diatribe about “the dogs of war trying to sell us lies about an imminent attack from Iran, just as they lied to us about the weapons of mass destruction they told us Saddam Hussein had.”
Israel’s “illegal strikes against Iran” are a “dirty trick” aimed at “deflecting” from the war in Gaza, he added.
PSC itself released a statement on Sunday condemning the US bombing of Iran, which it called “a significant violation of international law.” It also took the opportunity to call for an “immediate arms embargo and an end to all military cooperation with Israel and a commitment that the UK will not lend any material support to attacks by Israel or the US on Iran.”
“Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s calls for Iran to return to the negotiating table are deeply hypocritical, given that it was Israel’s illegal bombing of Iran that provoked the current crisis and ended negotiations.”
According to the Met, the protest started off peacefully but became more aggressive when the PSC march turned onto the Strand (en route from Russell Square to Whitehall), where it came into contact with the counter-protest. British media reported that, while separated, the two protests had only 10 meters between them.
Counter-protest
The small pro-Israel and anti-regime counter-protest featured several hundred Iranians and Israelis, most of whom were flying Israeli or the non-regime Iranian flags.
Faezeh Alavi, an Iranian artist, analyst, and foreign policy researcher who attended the counter-protest, told the Post on Sunday, “It was a hate and terror march. They were supporting the greatest terrorist of our time, Khamenei. Some of them stood close to the counter-protest of ‘Stop The Hate’ to find an opportunity for attacking Iranians and Israelis, and I remember that some of them aimed for physical attack and police tried to arrest them.”
Regarding the Stop The Hate side, Alavi said, “Everybody was happy and hopeful about a potential regime change in Iran.” She said people were saying to each other, “Soon in Tehran,” and Iranians and Israelis danced together and thanked the IDF.
“I personally talked on the microphone to the PSC demonstrators and told them that, ‘Listen to me, I am an Iranian and I support Israel. Thank you, IDF,’” she told the Post, adding that this angered them.
She said she felt “unsafe” due to the PSC marchers who were “extremely violent.” She also estimated that most of the pro-regime protesters were not Iranians.
Journalist Nicole Lampert said, “The small counter-demo at today’s anti-Israel demo has more Iranians than Israelis.” Videos from the rally show the counter-protesters shouting “go IDF” and “down with the Islamic Republic.”
“They are mainly pro-Shah, and even though Israel is bombing their country, they feel it’s bombing only the IRGC – one told me she’s hoping to be home by the time of the Iranian new year,” Lampert wrote.
The Met announced that “a bottle was thrown at the Stop The Hate protest” but “nobody was injured.” It added that “officers chased the suspect down the Strand and made an arrest.”
Stop The Hate, however, disputed this, saying, “There were actually at least two bottles thrown and at least one person injured who was seen by paramedics on the scene.” The group asked the Met to amend its statement.
It also tagged the Met in a video that shows a man yelling, “Israel is a terrorist state,” before doing what appears to be a Nazi salute.
The Met separately confirmed to the Post that it made eight arrests at the protest, including four for common assault and one for “making threats to kill at a previous protest.” It did not specify which side the arrests were from.
After the rally, Stop The Hate thanked the “Jews, Iranians, and allies [who] stood together to call for Iran to be free from the Islamic Republic. And to free hostages.”
Iranian activist Pouyan Vista posted two pictures, one of Israeli and Iranian protesters holding hands in a circle, and another of pro-Palestine and regime protesters.
Referring to the Israeli-Iranian one, he wrote, “The bond between two ancient nations; Joy, love, victory, holy anger, wisdom, truth, beauty, color, and life.”
Referring to the other, he said, “The connection of ideologies; Mourning, hatred, oppression, failure, deception, lies, ugliness, darkness, and death.”
Alavi also praised the US strike on Iran’s nuclear sites on Sunday morning, calling it a “historic moment by President [Donald] Trump.”
“A decisive act by both Israel and the US to prevent my country Iran to become another North Korea, this time in the Middle East and with a Marxist-Islamist ideology, as the main sponsor of terrorism. A nuclear Iran meant the end of any potential opportunity to make Iran free. I am happy about that. It made me hopeful to see the US joining Israel and Iranian people in this war and I am thankful of what the US administration did.”
IHRC
Interestingly, the Khamenei “right side of history” posters all featured a logo for the Islamic Human Rights Commission.
According to the organization National Union for Democracy in Iran (NUFDI), the London-based IHRC positions itself as a nonprofit advocacy entity but has significant ties to the Islamic regime.
An independent government review of the IHRC by Sir William Shawcross referred to it as “an Islamist group ideologically aligned with the Iranian regime that has a history of extremist links and terrorist sympathies.”
Its former director, Saied Reza Ameli, is also the secretary of the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution, who was responsible for the guidelines of the hijab and chastity in Iran and played a key role in the brutal crackdown on protesters following the murder of Mahsa Amini in 2022, NUFDI added.