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New York Rally Calls for Action on Iran Executions, Backs the NCRI Alternative, Rejects Monarchy

Iranian Resistance supporters rally outside the UN in New York on September 22, 2026.
Iranian Resistance supporters rally outside the UN in New York on September 22, 2026.

New York Rally Calls for Action Over Iran’s Executions, Highlights Resistance Units and Rejects a Return to Monarchy

NEW YORK — Thousands of Iranian-Americans and supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) rallied across from United Nations headquarters in New York on September 22, 2026, as world leaders gathered for the UN General Assembly, calling for international action against executions in Iran and backing an Iranian-led transition to a democratic republic. The gathering took place at Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza and featured former U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Ukraine Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Gen. Wesley Clark, former U.S. Ambassador Carla Sands, faith leaders, human-rights advocates and Iranian speakers. The rally took place as Iranian regime’s president Masoud Pezeshkian was also in New York for the General Assembly.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the NCRI

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the NCRI, sent a message to the New York rally, making both the Resistance Units and demands for international action central to her remarks. She opened by challenging Tehran’s representation at the UN and declared: “Iran’s seat belongs to the people of Iran and to their legitimate Resistance for peace, freedom, and a democratic republic.” She argued that continuing repression, executions and regional conflict were inseparable from the nature of the ruling system and stated: “The solution is democratic change by the people of Iran and their organized Resistance.”

Mrs. Rajavi said the determination expressed by Resistance Units, political prisoners and protesters constituted what she called the Iranian population’s message to the outside world. “Their message is this: they will overthrow the religious fascism ruling Iran, no matter the price,” she said. She cited political prisoners facing death sentences, including Arghavan Fallahi, whose message from prison rejected both forms of dictatorship: “We belong to Generation Z. We stand against dictatorship and dependence, against both the Shah and the Mullahs.” The NCRI President-elect said the same position extended beyond individual prisoners to successive uprisings and what she described as an increasingly defiant society.

She also challenged international policy toward Tehran, citing executions, previous protest crackdowns and reports by UN investigators and other human-rights bodies. Mrs. Rajavi argued that inaction on human rights had consequences beyond Iran’s borders, saying: “First, whenever the brutal violation of human rights in Iran is met with silence and inaction, this regime becomes emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons and its warmongering across the region.” She then rejected external war as an alternative: “Another lesson is that the solution to the Iranian crisis is neither war nor foreign intervention. Rather, it is the people of Iran and their organized Resistance who possess the ability and the legitimacy to bring about great change in Iran.”

On the concept of fake alternatives, Mrs. Rajavi was equally explicit. “The people of Iran have rejected every form of dictatorship, whether religious or monarchical,” she said.

Her message concluded with a series of concrete demands: creation of an international criminal-justice mechanism for crimes against humanity in Iran, Security Council referral of the human-rights situation to the International Criminal Court, and prosecutions under universal jurisdiction.

“We call on the Security Council to refer the regime’s human rights violations to the International Criminal Court. And we call on all countries to prosecute the regime’s leaders under the principle of universal jurisdiction,” she said. Mrs. Rajavi also urged the international community to recognize the Iranian people’s right to overthrow the existing system and “recognize the rights of the Resistance Units and the National Liberation Army to fight against the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).”

Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe

Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, similarly argued that the NCRI and PMOI constituted an organized vehicle for political change. “There’s hope for change, and that change is driven by the National Council for Resistance in Iran,” he told the rally. Turning directly to the PMOI, Gen. Clark said: “The MEK, you’re in every province in Iran, not just here in New York City, not in Paris. You’re in every province in Iran.” He emphasized what he described as its ability to communicate developments from inside the country, organize resistance and present an alternative political program.

Gen. Clark said Mrs. Rajavi’s Ten-Point Plan offered the basis for a transition built around political freedoms, elections, separation of religion and state and an end to nuclear-weapons ambitions and regional domination. Addressing governments hesitant about what might follow the existing system, he urged them to place greater confidence in the Iranian opposition’s capacity for organization. “They must believe in the National Council of Resistance of Iran,” he said. Gen. Clark concluded with one of the rally’s strongest calls for action: “I believe it will happen driven by the courage, and determination of the people of Iran, and I believe it will happen led by the National Council of Resistance and the MEK. Please choose the right moment, choose the right moment, but act.”

Former U.S. Ambassador Carla Sands

Former U.S. Ambassador Carla Sands argued that external military pressure could weaken Tehran but could not create a durable political alternative. “Only the indigenous force on the ground can deliver lasting change and peace,” she said. “The lasting solution lies in supporting the Iranian people and their organized resistance in bringing about change from within Iran.” Amb. Sands explicitly backed Iranians rejecting both the Pahlavi monarchy and clerical rule and praised Resistance Units confronting the security apparatus inside the country.

Amb. Sands devoted a substantial part of her speech to what she described as the resilience and organizational strength of the PMOI after decades of repression. “You are Iran’s leading opposition movement, and you’ve carried forward an unbroken struggle against dictatorship for 61 years,” she told supporters. “The MEK has survived, expanded, and continued its struggle because it’s rooted in the profound commitment to freedom.” She said the movement had succeeded in building “an organized movement capable of confronting the regime” and highlighted the prominent role women have assumed in its leadership. Amb. Sands also credited Mrs. Rajavi with helping create that structure, describing her as a political leader who had helped break longstanding barriers to women’s leadership.

She presented Mrs. Rajavi’s Ten-Point Plan as the political counterpart to that organization inside Iran, citing free elections, separation of religion and state, equality, minority rights and a non-nuclear republic. The former ambassador closed with a stark formulation of the choice she believed Western governments faced: “Stand with the executioners or those facing the gallows. Stand with a failed dictatorship or with an organized democratic resistance. Stand with the past or with the future.” She then explicitly declared support for the Resistance Units, the PMOI and Mrs. Rajavi’s democratic program.

Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg

Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg focused heavily on the Resistance Units as an existing force inside Iran rather than a diaspora-based political project. “There currently are Resistance Units in all 31 provinces of Iran,” he said. “They are currently acting as the engine of change and pursuing a strategy of confronting the Revolutionary Guards in combination with the people.” Gen. Kellogg described the NCRI under Mrs. Rajavi as possessing a “blueprint for Iran’s future governance” and pointed to its Ten-Point Plan as a roadmap toward a secular and non-nuclear republic.

Gen. Kellogg also drew a distinction between weakening the Iranian authorities from abroad and achieving political change inside the country. “Military attacks and sanctions have greatly weakened the regime, but it will not lead to change. That change is dependent upon the people of Iran,” he said. He urged Iranians to organize around a provisional government and free elections, while portraying escalating executions as evidence of official insecurity rather than stability. His core message was that external powers could not deliver freedom on behalf of Iranians: the decisive force, he argued, would have to be the population and the Resistance structures already operating within Iran.

Ana Sami, Attorney and Moderator

Ana Sami, an attorney and moderator of the rally, opened by thanking the Iranian-American community, supporters of freedom and democracy, and distinguished guests for gathering in New York with what she described as a common message: that the Iranian people reject the religious dictatorship ruling Iran. She said the rally was being held on behalf of a nation whose voice had been silenced, whose rights had been denied and whose people had paid an enormous price in pursuit of freedom, while emphasizing that the Iranian people remained committed to freedom and, in her words, “so close to victory.”

Sami said the gathering was intended to demand accountability for decades of repression, executions, terrorism, corruption and crimes against humanity. She also challenged the Iranian regime’s presence at the United Nations, arguing that it represented rulers associated with decades of massacre, murder, terror and hostage-taking rather than the Iranian people. “The seat of Iran at the United Nations belongs to the Iranian people,” she said.

She highlighted the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran as a central part of what she described as the democratic alternative, noting its 61st anniversary and its survival despite the execution of its founders under the Shah and the massacre of tens of thousands of its members under the clerical regime. Sami said that while world leaders were gathering for the 81st session of the UN General Assembly, the Iranian people were now speaking for themselves.

She further emphasized that Iran belonged to those who had sacrificed for freedom, those imprisoned for demanding basic rights and those continuing to resist tyranny despite what she described as unimaginable repression. She identified the National Council of Resistance of Iran as the democratic alternative and said Iran belonged to a free and democratic future.

Iranian-American advocate Zahra Amanpour

Iranian-American advocate Zahra Amanpour placed the rejection of monarchical restoration at the center of her speech. She traced political repression through both the Shah and the clerical system, arguing that Iran’s modern political struggle had repeatedly been denied its fundamental demand for popular sovereignty. The PMOI, she said, had opposed the Shah before resisting the clerical state and had survived imprisonment, executions, massacres and exile. Its continued existence, she argued, demonstrated that “replacing one dictatorship with another will never be enough.”

Amanpour contrasted hereditary and theocratic authority with the Resistance’s proposal for an elected republic based on political pluralism, separation of religion and state, equality and minority rights. She also pointed to the prominence of women in the PMOI’s leadership as a structural contrast with Tehran’s restrictions on women. Her rejection of a return to the Shah’s system was unequivocal: “Iranians did not struggle against monarchy to create religious tyranny, and the answer to religious tyranny is not to recreate monarchy.” She concluded that political power should neither be inherited nor concentrated in an unelected supreme authority: “One says power belongs to the Shah or a Supreme Leader. The other says sovereignty belongs to the Iranian people.”

Young Iranian Speakers

Young Iranian speakers at the rally delivered a broadly similar generational message, combining personal accounts of relatives executed under the clerical authorities with rejection of both religious and monarchical dictatorship. They emphasized the expansion of Resistance Units, the role of women in the PMOI and support for a secular democratic republic based on Rajavi’s Ten-Point Plan. One young Iranian-Canadian speaker summarized that rejection in unusually direct terms: “We will not exchange a turban for a crown or one dictator’s son for another. Iran is not a family inheritance. Iran belongs to its people.” Others emphasized that decades of executions had not eliminated the PMOI’s appeal among younger Iranians and portrayed the movement’s long record of female leadership as evidence that women’s equality had become an organizational principle rather than a slogan.

Rev. Adrienne Dannhauser, Episcopal priest and rector of the Church of the Incarnation

The rally also drew support from New York faith leaders. Rev. Adrienne Dannhauser, an Episcopal priest and rector of the Church of the Incarnation, cited reports of killings, torture, sexual violence and arbitrary imprisonment and rejected the use of religion as justification for state violence. “Dictatorship does not work because it is a usurpation and corruption of God’s power, whether exercised in the name of religion, monarchy, or any other ideology,” she said. Rev. Dannhauser called for solidarity with political prisoners and those facing death sentences and joined the rally’s demand for a “free, democratic, and secular republic.”

Rev. Dr. Chloe Breyer, executive director of the Interfaith Center of New York

Rev. Dr. Chloe Breyer, executive director of the Interfaith Center of New York, focused on religious freedom, human dignity and the costs paid by successive Iranian protest movements. Drawing on her own experience of interfaith engagement in Iran, she said direct contact with Iranians had changed perceptions formed through decades of political confrontation. Rev. Breyer thanked Iranians for what she described as their continuing efforts toward democracy and lamented that the United States had not done more in previous protest movements. Addressing prisoners and families whose relatives had been killed or detained, she said their sacrifices had not been in vain and closed with a biblical appeal to justice and protection for the oppressed.

Venezuelan human-rights activist and musician Jonathan Acosta

Venezuelan human-rights activist and musician Jonathan Acosta linked the Iranian gathering to opposition to authoritarian rule in his own country. Acosta said Venezuelans understood the experience of families whose children had been tortured or killed and expressed support for Iranians campaigning against executions. He said members of the Venezuelan community had travelled from Washington, Maryland and Virginia to participate and called for cooperation with the NCRI in pressing for an end to executions. Framing the issue as one extending beyond any one country, he urged Iranians and Venezuelans to speak for one another against dictatorship and closed by joining chants for a free Iran and an end to executions.

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New York Rally Calls for Action on Iran Executions, Backs the NCRI Alternative, Rejects Monarchy