Vice President Kamala Harris and other top US leaders on Friday hailed women leading protests in Iran as they met Iranian activists.
Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan each met with Nazanin Boniadi, the Iranian-born actress and human rights advocate.
Harris voiced “support for the brave women and girls leading peaceful protests in Iran to secure equal rights and basic human dignity,” the vice president’s office said in a statement.
She “emphasized how the courage of these women protestors has inspired her as it has inspired the world.”
Blinken earlier led a roundtable to listen to overseas Iranians including Boniadi, known for her role in the sitcom “How I Met Your Mother,” as well as writer Roya Hakakian and gender equality activist Sherry Hakimi.
Iran has seen its biggest wave of protests in years after the September 16 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by the morality police.
“In the wake of Amini's death and the spontaneous demonstration of outrage that this has produced, I think we are seeing something that is quite remarkable throughout the country, led primarily by women and young people,” AFP quoted Blinken as saying at the start of the meeting.
Blinken was joined by Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, who has championed women’s rights, and Rob Malley, the US pointman on Iran who has led months of talks in a bid to restore a 2015 nuclear accord.
Hakakian said the group urged President Joe Biden's administration to halt the talks, which could lead to an easing of sweeping sanctions on Iran if it returns to compliance with restrictions on its nuclear program.
“Our suggestion unanimously was to stop the nuclear talks until the violence stops. And I think everybody heard us loud and clear,” she told National Public Radio after the meeting.
White House spokesman John Kirby said Thursday that while the United States still backed the nuclear deal, it was unlikely that it would be revived “anytime in the near future.”
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline cleric, has accused the US of whipping up the protests to destabilize his country.
Blinken said he anticipated similar accusations that his meeting showed the protests were coming from the outside.
“If that’s the case, if they genuinely believe that, they fundamentally do not understand their own people,” Blinken said of the Iranian leadership.
In this context, an Iranian filmmaker said Tehran barred him from traveling to the London Film Festival over his support for the protest movement sparked by Amini’s death that he called a “great moment in history.”
“I was prevented by the Iranian authorities from boarding my flight to London on Friday,” Mani Haghighi said in a video message to festival-goers tweeted by the British Film Institute (BFI).
“They gave me no reasonable explanation for this actually rude behavior.”
The BFI said Haghighi had been due to attend the London Film Festival for his latest film “Subtraction,” but the Iranian authorities “confiscated his passport and he could not leave.”
In the video message, the 53-year-old Iranian director, writer and actor said he believed the authorities had prevented him from going abroad over his support for the Amini protest movement.
“A couple of weeks ago I recorded an Instagram video in which I criticized Iran’s mandatory hijab laws and the crackdown on the youth who are protesting it and so many other instances of injustice in their lives.”
“Perhaps the authorities thought by keeping me here they could keep a closer eye on me, perhaps to threaten me and shut me up.
“Well the very fact that I’m talking to you now in this video kind of undermines that plan,” he said.
Haghighi said, however, that he had no regrets about being forced to stay in Iran as a “prisoner” in his own country.
“Let me tell you that being here in Tehran right now is one of the greatest joys of my life.”
“I cannot put into words the joy and the honor of being able to witness first-hand this great moment in history and I would rather be here than anywhere else right now.”
“So if this is a punishment for what I've done, then by all means, bring it on.”
