Philly-area Ukrainians and Iranians march from the Art Museum to City Hall
A rescheduled rally marking the anniversary of the Ukraine war drew a small group of Iranian demonstrators on Sunday as well.
About 100 people gathered on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Sunday to stand with Ukraine, marking the recent fourth anniversary of the Russian war on the European nation.
“You don’t have to be Ukrainian to know what’s right and wrong,” said Iryna Mazur, 50, honorary consul of Ukraine in Philadelphia. “You don’t have to be Ukrainian to have a heart, and to stand for justice.”
The event also drew a second group: a small crowd of less than 10 people with a pre-Revolutionary Iranian flag stood alongside Ukraine supporters. While a joint protest had not been planned, Mazur expressed support for the Iranian demonstrators.
“What happened to the dictator in Iran should have happened a long time ago,” Mazur said.
Nazanin Saleh, 42, said she supported the attack on Iran’s supreme leader. She said she was getting ready for a birthday party when she got a notification that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was dead.
After years of sorrow, she said felt hope for a motherland she hasn’t seen since 2016.
“There is hope now, to be able to have a democracy and be able to have basic human rights, to vote,” Saleh said, pausing. “There is hope to be able to live as a free woman.”
She said the U.S intervention was necessary for the future of her loved ones back home.
“This war isn’t against the people of Iran,” Saleh said. “It is against an Islamic regime that’s forcefully killing people and taking away their freedom.”
After more than an hour at the Art Museum, the group marched down Benjamin Franklin Parkway, cheering for drivers who waved in support as they passed by.