Iranian spokeman Ramin Mehmanparast in New York. Photo: screenshot.

Protests near the United Nations welcomed the Iranian delegations this week and on Wednesday the country’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast received a New York style welcome from a 50 year old Arkansas native.

Gregory Nelson, who came up to Manhattan from Arkansas, threw a punch at Mehmanparast and hit him in the stomach.

“It felt really good,” the 50 year old Nelson told The New York Daily News. “It wasn’t that hard, but he felt it.”

A former member of the Army National Guard, Nelson was among the dozens of protesters who followed the Iranian spokesman just outside the UN on the east side of Manhattan, directly after Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered his speech to the General Assembly.

“We don’t usually conduct ourselves like that, but he’s a murderer,” Nelson said. “That whole regime, everybody is responsible for the murders that go on.”

The Algemeiner has located two videos of the incident involving Mehmanparast. The first is from inside a crowd of people as they shout and push the Iranian spokesman while the second seems to be taken from an office building above 48th street and 2nd avenue in Manhattan, showing Mehmanparast as he is followed by protesters before being ushered into an NYPD vehicle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ew1voX0wnew