The Persian Gulf café in Westwood was a recent target of vandalism after the owner, Roozbeh Farahanipour, set up a memorial in the restaurant honoring women who have been killed in Iran’s protests.
According to Farahanipour, while he was giving public comment Oct. 18 to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors supporting its advocacy for women in Iran, he learned the door to his café had been vandalized. He told The Epoch Times he f ound out when his wife, who also works at the café, informed him through a text message.
He said surveillance footage showed a car driving up to the cafe in the 1300 block of Westwood Boulevard and then someone throwing an object at the café entrance, shattering its glass door. He said he was unable to see the car’s license plate or what the object was thrown at the door. The entrance is now boarded up, he said, and could take weeks to repair.
Farahanipour said he believes the attack was carried out by sympathizers of the Islamic Republic, since the incident happened a few days after photos of the memorial gained publicity on several national media outlets. He said he filed a report with the Los Angeles Police Department, but the suspect is still at large, and he is skeptical will ever be found.
“They’re not going to solve anything,” he said, because prioritizing violent crimes will come first.
The memorial honors 22-year-old Mahsa Amini who was killed last month at the hands of Iranian morality police for improperly wearing a hijab. Her death has sparked protests in support of women in Iran across Los Angeles and Orange County.
According to the U.S.-based human rights group Human Rights Activists in Iran—or HRANA—the regime turned violent on its own local protesters, killing more than 200 people, many of whom were women and children. Protesters and organizers have been arrested, HRANA reported too, as the government has used live ammunition and tear gas to disperse crowds.
“This is a normal thing with the regime,” Farahanipour told The Epoch Times. “All the time, they try to cut the voice of the people, or voice of the residents and demonstrations.”
For Farahanipour, this is nothing new, he said.
“I’m fighting against this regime for almost my entire life,” Farahanipour said.
According to Farahanipour, who is also the president of the West Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, he has been a victim of the abuses of the Islamic regime in his homeland of Iran before he received political asylum in the United States. In 1999, Farahanipour said he was tortured in prison for leading a student activist group battling for democracy in the country.
“We [will] never feel safe and feel comfortable until this regime gets overthrown by the people,” he said.
According to Farahanipour, he’s been targeted in different ways by the regime “over the last 20 years.”
During the grassroots resistance movement that began in 1998, he said he was imprisoned in solitary confinement for 36 days and repeatedly tortured at the hands of the Islamic militia. His testimony, he said, is now included in the United Nations’ Report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Despite the vandalism, Farahanipour said he will not remove the memorial, which sits on one of the café’s tables.
