On September 23, 2025, thousands gathered at a major rally in New York City to call for an end to tyranny and theocracy in Iran. Addressing the rally, Linda Chavez, former Director of the White House Office of Public Liaison, declared that the Iranian people’s demand for freedom can no longer be denied.

“You have come here in your thousands to demand an end to the Khamenei regime,” Chavez said, emphasizing that the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) represents the only credible alternative.

She recalled her longstanding support for the Iranian Resistance, beginning in 1992 when she sponsored a UN resolution condemning Tehran’s human rights abuses. Describing her visits to Ashraf 3 as deeply moving, Chavez praised the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) members as selfless and dedicated. She highlighted Maryam Rajavi’s Ten-Point Plan as “a roadmap for a democratic, secular, and non-nuclear Iran” ensuring free elections, gender equality, and freedom of expression.

Rejecting monarchist claims, Chavez stated, “The Shah was a murderous dictator. It is inconceivable that Iran’s future could rest in the hands of his son, who openly brags about ties to the IRGC.” Instead, she stressed, “Mrs. Rajavi is not seeking power for herself. She is demanding that the Iranian people be given the right to freely choose their own leaders.”

Chavez concluded with a direct warning to the regime’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian: “Change is coming.”

The full text of Linda Chavez’s speech follows:

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. You have given me such a warm welcome, and I say to you, I am so proud to stand here in New York City with the thousands of Iranian Americans and Iranian diaspora from not just the United States, but around the world. And so my greetings to you, to the Iranian diaspora in Europe and elsewhere and very importantly to those in Ashraf 3, but also in Iran.

For more than 46 years, the theocratic regime in Iran has denied the Iranian people their freedom. But the time when the Ayatollahs could rule with an iron fist is coming to an end. In the last year, we have watched their power slipping away. The regime’s efforts to produce nuclear weapons have been dealt a death blow. With damaged facilities, bombed at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan, not to mention the regime’s humiliation at having its security apparatus penetrated by a foreign government.

The country is also experiencing a major drought, which the Ayatollahs seem incapable or uninterested in searching for ways to alleviate the people’s suffering. The regime spends far more time, money, and energy on persecuting its citizens than it does on making their lives better. In 2025 alone, the mullahs have executed 800 people. In one week alone, between September 8th and September 15th, the regime hanged 15 prisoners.

But not content simply at imprisoning, torturing and killing anyone who would protest the human rights abuses of this murderous regime. They have sunk to new lows by desecrating burial sites for the thousands of dissidents and PMOI members who were executed in the 1980s.

When will it end? And how will it end? As the successful bombing campaign over 12 days in June suggests, war alone is unlikely to accomplish true change in Iran. Bombs can destroy facilities and kill functionaries of the regime. But buildings can be rebuilt and a new group of functionaries found to replace those who have died.

It is the regime itself, the perversion of religious teaching, the extensive network of secret police, vice squads and others, the corruption of the judicial system, the use of terror to keep people in line, that must be destroyed.

But that kind of change will come only at the hands of the Iranian people. And it will mean standing the system itself on its head. Some in the West have believed for a very long time that the problem of a nuclear-armed Iran can be solved with negotiations. Or that the next sham elections will produce moderate leadership. But in order for those solutions to work, you must have leaders who respect the rule of law. No agreement is worth more than the integrity of those who have affixed their name to it. And elections in which the ruling party determines who can run will never be honest or fair.

The Iranian people deserve better. Thousands of you have come to New York to demand an end to the Khamenei regime. This rally calls for an end to theocracy and tyranny in Iran, and the establishment of a democratic, secular, and non-nuclear Iran.

We are standing just a stone’s throw away from the United Nations. Which brings back memories of how I came to be involved with the PMOI/MEK. This year is the 60th anniversary of the founding of the PMOI/MEK fighting two dictatorships. And I have been with you for more than half of that time.

In 1992, I was the US expert to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, Sub-committee on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, which met each August in Geneva. During my first year there, a representative of the PMOI asked me to sponsor a resolution condemning human rights abuses in Iran, particularly the regime’s treatment of women. I was honored to do so. And to be joined by my colleague from Great Britain in doing so.

During the more than 30 years since, I have gotten to know the leadership of the PMOI/MEK and have happily supported their long struggle for the Iranian people. That struggle has put them in the crosshairs even of the United States government when the group was designated a terrorist organization. Thankfully, and I am proud to have been part of the effort, that designation was removed. But it should never have been applied in the first place.

I have been impressed as I encountered the resistance movement here and abroad, especially in my visits to Ashraf 3 in Albania. The people I have met there have been selfless, dedicated, and committed to establishing a free Iran. Of course, no one more so than Maryam Rajavi, the president elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

Mrs. Rajavi presented her blueprint for a free Iran in 2006, the Ten-Point Plan. It remains today a road map for a democratic, secular, non-nuclear Iran. It calls for the separation of religion and state, an independent judiciary, equal rights for men and women, universal suffrage, freedom of speech and assembly, respect for civil and human rights, and a commitment not to build nuclear bombs.

No one can predict the future. But one thing is certain: change is coming. The only question is what kind of change. It would be, in my view, a mistake for Iranians to look backwards for leadership. The Shah was a murderous dictator. It seems inconceivable to me that Iran’s future lies in giving power to his son, a man who boasts of his relationship with the IRGC and sees them as playing a role in a future Iran.

But that will be up to the Iranian people. Or it should be. And it is not up to power brokers in world capitals to make that choice.

I see in Mrs. Rajavi a beacon of change. As a woman, as someone who has lost family, friends, and colleagues to a murderous regime. She knows better than most what the Ayatollahs have done to Iran. She has fought tirelessly for decades to give hope to her people. Mrs. Rajavi is not asking for governments around the world to choose her to rule Iran. She is asking for the Iranian people to be given the opportunity to choose their own leader. She has no interest in being a puppet to anyone. She wants to be a servant of the Iranian people, freely chosen in elections that provide universal suffrage and that will bring a new day to Iran.

It is such a privilege to be here in the streets of New York with all of you and to be addressing those who are watching by video around the world. I hope that your message today is heard in those corners. But it needs to be heard not far from here by one man, a very special member of the audience: the President, Masoud Pezeshkian. And I have one message for him, and hear it loud and clear: change is coming.