CBC – A group of Winnipeggers with ties to Iran gathered near Portage Avenue and Main Street on Sunday to support United States and Israeli attacks that killed the country’s leader.
Demonstrators waved Iran’s former lion-and-sun flag, while chanting messages of thanks to both U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The group also called for the U.S. to recognize Reza Pahlavi — the son of Iran’s last shah and a prominent opposition figure — as the leader of a transitional government.
The rally was held before news broke that Ali Khamenei’s son Mojtaba Khamenei will succeed him as Iran’s new supreme leader. Israel’s military previously warned it will target Iran’s next supreme leader and anyone involved in choosing him.
Saeid Ghavami, spokesperson for the Iranian Monarchists of Manitoba, which organized the rally on Sunday, said people inside Iran and across the diaspora are feeling optimistic that the conflict will lead to regime change.
“I am very positive that Iran will stand again and I can guarantee that Iran, without the Islamic Republic, will help the world to be a better place,” he said, adding he believes Pahlavi will eventually come to power.
As of Sunday, more than 1,200 civilians, including nearly 200 children, have been killed in Iran since the conflict began on Feb. 28, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said (HRANA).
Ramtin Teymouri, who was at the rally, said people in Iran have long pushed for change peacefully, and war is a last resort.
“I am in contact with people, friends, family inside Iran, and they’re not people who wanted war, but they think that the regime has to go,” he said.
Teymouri said there was a “moment of relief” after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in one of the first strikes launched against Iran, but some of the regime’s establishment remains.
“If the regime survives, it will be more brutal than it was before. There needs to be a change. We wanted it to happen peacefully and democratically, but this is the only way,” Teymouri said.
“This is about reclaiming Iran and making Iran a country for all Iranians, regardless of their religious beliefs, their ethnic background, linguistic background, whatever politics they have.”
Bijan Babaie lived through a revolution, three wars and multiple public protests that saw people killed in the street before he left Iran with his family and moved to Manitoba in 2021.
Now he worries about his mother and brother still living in Karaj, about 30 kilometres from Tehran.
He last spoke with his mother a week ago, when she called to say Karaj had been attacked and the strikes were near their home but that they were safe.
He has been unable to reach her since.
“All the last week, maybe I slept less than 10 hours. I cannot sleep,” he said in an interview later on Sunday. “I want to think they are safe, but war is not safe. War is never safe.
“You don’t know that tomorrow morning you will be alive or not.”
The 55-year-old trained and worked as a doctor in Iran for 27 years. He is now an office assistant in a Winnipeg clinic and studying to pass exams and regain his medical licence so he can continue to help people.
During war in Iran, he saw hospitals filled with injured people, leading to the cancellation of all regular appointments and surgeries.
Long after the battle has finished, people suffer long-term issues like PTSD and spiritual problems, Babaie said.
He recalls, as a student, that the home of one of his classmates was bombed. The funeral was held at the school.
“Many of us, many of our friends, many of our family, whenever we hear an airplane noise [we] sometimes start to cry,” he said.
Iranians are scared but Babaie, like others, believes many view the current conflict as a potential, albeit difficult, catalyst for societal change.
“I hope everything that happens [brings] a safe and good future,” he said, and he appreciates Canadians acting as a voice for the Iranian people.
Majid Kermani, an Iranian Manitoban who lives in Selkirk, said on Monday morning that he thinks most Iranians will be disappointed by the appointment of Mojtaba, calling him “a copy-and-paste” of his father, Khamenei.
“People of Iran were expecting a new leader to change the direction that the regime was going. However, Mojtaba is very, very like his father and has been trained by him, and he has been involved in all decisions that [Khamenei] had made in the last 47 years,” Kermani said.
But maybe there is a chance Mojtaba “has seen what his father had done and tries to correct it,” Kermani said.
“I hope that they will be wise enough to find a way to get out of this situation — change their way of thinking.”
Kermani was able to get in touch with his sister-in-law, who is still in Iran, on Sunday. Her house was damaged because it is close to a police building in Tehran that was targeted by bombs.
However, they had predicted that was likely coming and had earlier moved to the home of another family member and were safe, he said.
“I believe war doesn’t bring happiness to any nation. Now that it’s happening, I’m hoping that it ends with a good result for the people of Iran. That’s all that matters,” Kermani said.
“I’m hoping that Iran will be a safe place for all the people [and] there will be no more casualties.”