Canada

A large crowd of 150,000 demonstrators shut down a swath of the downtown Toronto in solidarity with protesters in Iran, who are fighting against the country’s financial collapse and the regime that led to it.

Nationwide protests in Iran started Dec. 28 in response to soaring prices, then turned into wider anti-government protests against the clerical rulers who have governed the country for nearly 50 years.

At the same time, tens of thousands of pro-government demonstrators have taken to the streets in a show of power, in response to protesters challenging the country’s theocracy.

Pooria Shafia, a Toronto-based engineer who attended Sunday's protest, says he's concerned about his relatives that still live in Iran.

“Every time I try to ask my cousin to see if he was able to contact them, I couldn't bring myself to [do] it because I was just afraid of what the response would be,” he told CBC Toronto Sunday.

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About 15,000 protesters also met at the Vancouver Art Gallery plaza to demand the fall of the Islamic regime.

They marched in the streets across parts of downtown, many waving the lion-and-sun flag of Iran, which is now banned in the Islamic Republic. Others chanted for freedom and held up photos of missing and deceased relatives. Their goal, they said, is to keep international attention focused on the humanitarian crisis.

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Among them was Sahand Jamshidi, who said his cousin, Mohammad-Hossein Jamshidi, died during a protest in Iran.

“People were out protesting peacefully [in Iran] and totally out of the blue shots were fired,” said Jamshidi who is currently based in Surrey, B.C. “Lots of teenagers, lots of dads, lots of moms were killed.”

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