New York - A few thousand people crammed into a small, designated area outside of the United Nations Tuesday to protest the visits of the world's most hated leaders. Most were demonstrating against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who won a disputed election this summer that prompted weeks of bloody unrest, and Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi, who was making his first-ever visit to the United States since taking power in a coup in 1969.
The protests are an annual affair as world leaders gather in New York to speak before the UN General Assembly. There is extremely tight security, and the UN designates a heavily guarded area opposite its headquarters on the east side of Manhattan for demonstrations.
Demonstrators called on world leaders to shun rather than welcome world dictators, who often become the spectacle of the UN's annual summit in September.
"Gaddafi is a criminal. He shouldn't be here," said Imam Husham al-Husaini, a Muslim religious leader who came from Dearborn, Michigan. "How could they welcome him?"
Scotland's release of the Libyan man convicted of the 1988 bombing of a Pan-Am flight over Lockerbie and his return to his country have added to the controversy. Families of the victims, many of whom were Americans, have been vocal critics of the visit and Gaddafi's attempts to put up a tent at various locations near New York have drawn ire from local officials.
Yet Gaddafi's opponents were outnumbered by a separate, closed-off gathering in the same area that was organized by Libyan officials. Members of the delegation cheered as Gaddafi appeared on a giant television screen to give his first address to the assembly.
Demonstrators held up pictures of political prisoners. There was a re-enactment of the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan, a young woman who became the face of the Iranian election protests after her death was caught on film and the video broadcast around the world.
Ahmadinejad was to address the General Assembly later Wednesday in what Iranian officials said would be a "message of peace." But the protestors - many supporters of Iranian opposition leader Mir-Hossein Moussavi, who says he won the summer's presidential election - said they were not interested in Ahmadinejad's words.
"We would like everybody to show that they don't want him here," said Nazila Akbari, a 46-year-old Iranian now living in Virginia. "He is not our president."
