200 Seattle marchers gather in global day of solidarity to protest Iran

Calling for awareness and United Nations intervention, nearly 200 people marched through downtown Seattle Saturday to support ongoing protests in Iran disputing last month's presidential election.

"A million people are on the streets of Tehran," said Farzan Mamaghani, a Seattle technology consultant. "We want to show that we support their cause. They're looking for basic freedoms."

The demonstration, which began at Seattle's Freeway Park, was among hundreds scheduled worldwide on Saturday, a "Global Day for Solidarity" to raise awareness of Iran's political crisis.

Since last month, hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets to dispute incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's victory over rival Mir Hossein Mousavi.

"We're just trying to make sure the Seattle community knows what's going on," said event co-organizer Shayan Arya, a local engineer. "They're arresting thousands of people, killing lots of people."

Put off by heat, a faulty megaphone and the whirring machines of construction workers, the crowd decided it was too hard to hear. Instead, they wanted to march.

Within minutes, they were chanting: "Democracy in Iran" and "United/Nations/Where is your attention?" on their way to Westlake Plaza. They wound through downtown Seattle, collecting honks of support from passing cars along streets where people had already set up camp chairs for Saturday's Torchlight Parade.

An Iranian-born Bellevue accountant who identified herself only as Helen said she had come because the last month's events had made her sad. "I just want all this brutality to stop," she said. "If you let tyranny happen on the other side of the world, it will affect all of us."

Dozens of marchers wore green — the color embraced globally by supporters of the Iran protests — and many of their signs and T-shirts memorialized Neda Agha Soltan, the 26-year-old Iranian woman whose fatal shooting by a sniper, captured on amateur video, sparked global outrage.

"Since Neda was killed, I said, 'This is it,' " said an Iranian-born Boeing engineer who would not give his name, afraid for family members still living there.

On this day, he carried a sign bearing Neda's image and reading, "Neda died with open eyes/Shame on us who live with closed eyes."

"Neda was my inspiration," he said. "... Iranians are losing their life for freedom. If I did not do anything, I would be ashamed of myself for the rest of my life."