First possibility is a miltary dictator like pinochet who may eventually thaw into a democracy.

Or the worse possibility you get a secular poltical dictator like Aliyev who would probably last a long time.

Remember freedom is not free democracy isn't a guarantee and many people wouldn't care as long as the economy and foreign policy is fixed.

Even doh our people were hungry, the regime gave people free food such as rice hoping the protestors went home … what did the people do? Throw away/toss the rise into the air symboling their only hungry for regime change!

I'm thinking that Iran after a potential revolution is probably going to look kind of like Turkey does today, where there are obviously still some number of conservative religious people or people with Islamist political sympathies, under a broadly secular government structure (despite Erdogan).

How do you imagine things playing out after the regime is gone? How will Islam, and its various cultural, social, and political elements shaping Iranian society, be dealt with or managed under a new secular political framework? Should religion be actively suppressed or discouraged to prevent future Islamist risings? Should Zoroastrianism be promoted as part of an Iranian cultural revival? Otherwise, can these more conservative elements be integrated into the new system somehow?

This is not an attack on anyone who was participating in this protest but I walked past it during on Kensington High Street and had a few observations to make from someone passing by. I am only posting this because I genuinely care about the cause and my dearest wish is for the people or Iran to be free. I think some of our PR strategies in the diaspora need to change. I must also preface that I support Reza Pahlavi as a unifying figure and have always followed him, long before most Iranians even spoke about him in the diaspora. I must also say that I support Israel in the obliteration of the regime and that’s been even long before the 2026 strikes.

Firstly, the protest and symbolisms are simply too confusing for people to understand. There are so many messages that the main one get’s lost. Unless I’m missing something it should be “Free the people of Iran. Help bring down the regime”
I was with a friend and when we were walking they saw it first from far away and she told me oh look as we have had conversations about Iran and what’s happening there. She knows how deeply I hold it in my heart. However, the closer we got the more I was apprehensive due to what I was seeing, I wasn’t sure what to expect exactly and from a passer by perspective the movement looked completely bizarre.

First point, I had the impression there were more Israeli flags that Iranian flags. I understand it when it’s Israelis showing support and coming to protests and repping their support. But I’m pretty sure this was not the case and it was Iranians waving the flag. I’m not saying it is morally wrong, however it does drown the message and draws the attention away from the main message. And the issue is that some of us maybe from a younger generation do our activist work by talking with our peers and educating them through conversations. This work can become harder when they see Israel and the Iranian people getting conflated as a lot of them don’t particularly like Israel. It’s also great propaganda for the pro-regime supporters. Frankly, Israel does not need us to wave its flag, and it clearly doesn’t care about its public image anyways, so what’s the point of doing this? What they acc need is Iranians in Iran helping them sabotage the regime and they have that. The rest is useless to them.

Remember the Shah when he spoke about patriotism, would he really have liked Iranians waving around another flag but the one of Iran?

Secondly, and I’ll be completely blunt here, the whole crown display and chant while raising it makes us look like a cult. If anything I feel like this hurts Reza Pahlavi’s image more than anything as it makes his followers look like fanatics. In my head at some point I even wondered if there weren’t pro-regime elements trying to push that image in the crowd.

There was other 2 passer bys next to us and I literally heard the guy say “I’m so confused” when they were looking at it.

And that really summed up my impression.

What exactly are we trying to communicate to the British public?

Surely our central message should be simple: the people of Iran deserve freedom, the Islamic Republic must go, and Western governments should stop appeasing a regime that imprisons, tortures and kills its own people.

The Lion and Sun flag, clear slogans, images and stories of victims, and straightforward demands would communicate that message far more effectively than a confusing mixture of foreign flags and royal symbolism.

I’m not questioning anyone’s dedication to Iran. I know many people attending these demonstrations have sacrificed and been through far more for this cause than I have.

But passion alone doesn’t guarantee effective advocacy. We need to think seriously about how our protests are perceived by people outside our own community.

I’m sharing this as constructive criticism because I genuinely want our movement to succeed.

I’d be interested to hear what others think, particularly anyone who attended the protest. Perhaps there’s context I’m missing.

Javid Shah
Payandeh Iran

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Petition Update

The Decision Makers

Ib Hounsgaard Trabjerg,

Chairman of the Danish Refugee Appeals Board (Flygtningenævnet)

Morten Bødskov,

Ministry for Immigration and Integration (Udlændinge- og Integrationsministeriet)

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They are the key decision makers, and the one's who can overturn.

Thank you all.

We have youngsters whose academic dreams have been crushed by the University Entrance Exam (Konkoor).

We have men whose 2 years of lives were wasted in the military service (Sarbazi).

We have women who have been second class citizens.

We have pensioners having to drive "Uber" to afford medicine (Snapp).

We have teenagers whose friends were gunned down or committed suicide.

We have fathers who had to look for their kids' corpses in silos.

We have mothers whose kids are getting executed everyday.

We have expats who haven't seen their families in years.

We have expats who have always been humiliated at passport control.

We have dissidents whose wealth has been confiscated.

We have families who have had to fend for themselves after natural disasters.

We have families whose baskets of goods have emptied.

We have had retail investors whose savings just vanished without insurance.

We have a population +70% of which are below the poverty line.

We have entrepreneurs whose businesses failed because of the economy.

We have online stores that failed because of Internet blackout.

We have prisoners whose lives were ruined by sham trials.

We have a population whose tax money wasn't used for their welfare but for bombs, militias, and terrorism.

We have a proud nation whose civilization has been mocked, ridiculed, and insulted for 47 years.

We have a nation who have had to endure religion getting shoved down their throats.

We have non-Muslims who've been discriminated against in all areas of life.

We have people in the south and the south east who have been completely neglected.

We have knowledgeable technocrats who have had to put up with imbeciles whose jobs they have stolen.

I could go on for years. The list of crimes is endless. This is a horrific, horrific situation.

This pent up anger is so intense that when the regime falls, I'm genuinely afraid of a bloodbath if stringent measures of control and restraint isn't enforced, and fast. This is especially important because the youth make up the majority of the population.

When people talk about wanting to hang mullahs and government officials from light poles, and shove stuff in their ass, I don't think for one second they're exaggerating.

The longer this demonic regime stays, the harder national reconciliation and closure will be.