Iranian ex-pats staged a picket outside the Russian embassy in London today; to protest at Russia's continuous support for the Islamic Republic and the inhumane treatment of Iranian refugees in Russia.

Iran has suffered continuously from the unwanted interference by her northern neighbour in the last two centuries. Many of Iran's provinces were annexed by the Tsarist Russia, in line with their expansionist ambitions of reaching warm waters of the Persian Gulf. The Russians opposed Iran's constitutional revolution by siding with the despot Qajar king, bombing the new parliament and killing thousands of Iranian freedom fighters.

After Iran's occupation in the second world war by the allies, the Russians and their puppet installed government in Azarbijan refused to
leave the Iranian territory. Throughout the second half of the 20th century too, the Soviet backed Communist Tudeh Party, kept destabilising the country and served faithfully its pay masters in the Soviet Politburo.

Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in Iran, the Russians have been close allies with the clerics in Iran, both during the Soviet years and the neo-KGB era.

Today coincided with the anniversary of the liberation of Iranian Azerbijan from Russian occupation after the second world war. Iranian ex-pats chose today as an appropriate occasion to stage a protest picket outside the Russian embassy in London to condemn Russia's continuous support for the clerics in Iran and the mistreatment of Iranian refugees.

Interestingly, the Russian embassy refused to accept a letter and a petition by the organisers fearing that the papers may be contaminated! This by the way is not a joke, they really refused to accept on the grounds that the papers may be contaminated. The Persian proverb comes to mind "The evil doer thinks everyone is like him".