Mehman-Parast complained that US police did nothing to protect him from attack and did not arrest any of those who attacked him.
The police said they came to his rescue as soon as they saw what was going on.
A still photo shows Mehman-Parast being chased by about 10 people. A video taken from a second story window shows a scrum of police, protesters and Iranian diplomats moving up and down the street for more than two minutes. It isn’t clear how long the confrontation had been in progress when the video starts so there as no way to determine how long it took the police to reach Mehman-Parast.
It also isn’t clear why the scrum moved around as it did. In the video, the group of people crossed an intersection, moved up the sidewalk, then back down the sidewalk to the intersection, started back across the intersection, then headed up the middle of the street around traffic, then back to the sidewalk and back to the intersection where Mehman-Parast was placed in a police car to be driven to safety.
The confrontation took place last Wednesday at the intersection of Second Avenue and East 48th Street, just north of the United Nations.
Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan Qashqavi charged that the United States government put the Mojahedin-e Khalq up to the attack. One man in the video was wearing what appeared to be a yellow Mojahedin vest.
PressTV reported that Mehman-Parast was “assaulted.” The Mehr news agency quoted Mehman-Parast as saying he was “verbally abused, pushed and shoved.” He did not assert that he was hit or physically assaulted.