Last night inside the Nokia Theatre: fashionable representatives of LA’s glitterati, enjoying the ESPY awards. Outside the Theatre: determined members of LA’s Persian community, insisting that Nokia answer for contributing to Iran’s fascist panoptic regime. A quick reminder about the scope of the Finnish telecom giant’s craven collaboration with Khamenei, Ahmadinejad, and their ilk:

In confronting the political turmoil that has consumed the country this past week, the Iranian government appears to be engaging in a practice often called deep packet inspection, which enables authorities to not only block communication but to monitor it to gather information about individuals, as well as alter it for disinformation purposes, according to these experts. The monitoring capability was provided, at least in part, by a joint venture of Siemens AG, the German conglomerate, and Nokia Corp., the Finnish cellphone company.

As guests waited at the crosswalk opposite the Nokia, protesters would ask them to put on a green ribbon in support of Iranian dissidents. Very few of our well-heeled moral betters donned the symbol – LA being something less than an epicenter for genuine pro-freedom sentiment – but those who did got loud cheers from the 50+ person crowd.

Meanwhile there were staffers tasked with organizing visuals, coordinating with the press, and even supplying everyone with water. The youngest attendee was a baby in a stroller getting tended to by siblings. The oldest was an elderly woman in a wheelchair holding up an anti-Ahmadinejad banner. This was a broad, well-organized community event.

I left out photos of the little kids because children at rallies are creepy. Much more seriously, I also had to exclude many of the middle-aged protesters because they still have family back in Iran. The final result is a gallery of 40 pictures filled mostly with college students, recent grads, and official event staff. Small versions of the first 20 photos are embedded above and below, and everything else is in the slideshow at the end. Click through on anything to get full 800px versions.

Relatedly, it’s now confirmed science that Middle Eastern protest babes are not geographically confined to Central Asia and the Near East. Good Lord.