to Google News Protesters denounce Ahmadinejad outside UN

AFP

NEW YORK — About 800 people including many of Iranian origin protested Thursday outside the United Nations where the country's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was attending the UN General Assembly.

They chanted "Ahmadinejad is a terrorist" and "Viva Rajavi," a reference to Maryam Rajavi, head of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a coalition of exiled groups opposed to the Islamic regime in Tehran.

"It is time for the international community to stop dealing with Ahmadinejad and finally recognize and empower the opposition, so that the Iranian people can finally get the democratic change it deserves," said Ali Safavi, a member of the coalition.

"We want democracy, not barbaric theocracy," said Henry Anavian, an Iranian living in New York and affiliated with the Ma Hastim group aimed at raising awareness of human rights issues in Iran.

"We just want the United Nations to stop dealing with Ahmadinejad. He doesn't represent the Iranian people"

The protest included a street performance depicting people stained with fake blood and scenes of hanging and stoning. Some people carried the tri-colored flags with a lion sun, used in Iran before the Islamic revolution.

Many of the demonstrators were affiliated with the the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, the main group in the NCRI. The PMOI is officially listed as a foreign terrorist organization in the United States, although a judge ruled in July that it should be removed from the blacklist.