A powerful salute to Iranians in New York
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), opened her address by greeting her fellow Iranians and distinguished guests gathered outside the United Nations. She praised their perseverance, noting that their annual protest was not only an act of defiance but also a show of support for the courageous youth and those who spark uprisings inside Iran. This perseverance, she declared, is the Iranian people’s greatest asset for victory.
From Paris, Rome, and Brussels to New York, she said, the message is the same. It resonates from Tehran, Mashhad, Ahvaz, Tabriz, Zahedan, Kerman, Kurdistan, and from within Iran’s prisons: the demand for the overthrow of the regime and democratic change in the form of a republic built on freedom and rights.
Message to the Grand New York Rally
Standing here in force before the United Nations, the world can see it clearly: you represent the people of Iran. You are their voice—not Khamenei’s president who, in just 14 months in office, has overseen more than 1,800 executions.… pic.twitter.com/HcCQ6tPEKC— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) September 23, 2025
Declaring the Iranian people’s rightful demand
Mrs. Rajavi emphasized that the Iranian nation, together with its supporters, was declaring before the United Nations that they are closer than ever to achieving this rightful demand. The demonstrators, she stressed, represented the true voice of the Iranian people before the UN—not the so-called president of the Supreme Leader, who in just 14 months had overseen the execution of 1,817 people.
She underlined that these numbers were incomplete, just as with the victims of COVID-19. Only days earlier, she said, Raisi’s own deputy had admitted that the real death toll was at least double the 530,000 previously reported.
Mrs. Rajavi asked bluntly: what business does the representative of such an anti-human regime have at the UN? After six years of investigation, the UN Special Rapporteur had concluded that the regime was complicit in crimes against humanity and genocide.
Recognition of the Iranian people’s struggle
Mrs. Rajavi urged the international community to recognize the Iranian people’s resistance and uprising in line with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She reminded her audience that the clerical regime had been condemned 71 times by the UN General Assembly and other bodies for executions, torture, and egregious human rights violations.
Her message was clear: the Iranian people’s seat at the United Nations must not be handed to a regime of executions and massacres. She called for the case of genocide and crimes against humanity in Iran to be referred to the UN Security Council and for Khamenei and other officials to be prosecuted in an international court. She urged the world not to remain silent in the face of the brutal killings of Iranian youth. Appeasement, she warned, had only emboldened the regime.
Europe forced to act on the nuclear issue
Turning to the nuclear question, Mrs. Rajavi said it had become undeniable that the clerical regime would never abandon its nuclear project. Europe, she noted, was forced at the last minute to trigger the “snapback” mechanism.
She reminded the world that, if not for the Iranian Resistance’s revelations of secret nuclear sites 23 years ago, the regime might already have acquired an atomic bomb. The 133 disclosures made by the Resistance, she argued, were the greatest service to peace and security in the Middle East and beyond, offered without expectation and often without acknowledgment. Had the UN and its members listened earlier, she insisted, war could have been avoided.
Mrs. Rajavi reiterated that since 1990, the Resistance had declared that the clerical regime viewed nuclear weapons as its only strategic guarantee for survival. The regime’s main war, she said, is against the people of Iran, and its downfall will come from within by the Iranian people themselves.
Isn’t it time to recognize the Iranian people’s struggle and uprising for change, according to the UDHR?
The clerical regime in Iran has been condemned 71 times by the int’l community in the UNGA and other UN bodies for executions, torture, and horrific human rights abuses. pic.twitter.com/kFY9EHxJRO— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) September 23, 2025
The nightmare of the Resistance Units
Mrs. Rajavi recalled that in his first remarks after the outbreak of the recent 12-day war, Khamenei expressed concern about the “dormant cells” of the Mojahedin (PMOI/MEK) and their roadmap for uprising. This, she said, is his constant nightmare. But she insisted that there are no dormant cells—only Resistance Units and rebellious youth, the most vigilant fighters of Iran, the living embodiment of the nation’s hope for freedom.
Citing Massoud Rajavi, she declared that these units, with their bare hands, were swiftly closing the final gap to a nationwide uprising.
A people’s republic for Iran’s future
Mrs. Rajavi set out her vision for Iran’s future in the simplest terms: sovereignty of the people, a people’s republic. She rejected both the rule of the mullahs and any return to monarchy, saying the era of all dictatorships was over. The Iranian people, she proclaimed, would not return to the past and had risen against the current religious tyranny.
Before the United Nations and the world, Mrs. Rajavi concluded with unwavering confidence: tomorrow belongs to the Iranian people. Victory belongs to them. She ended with a salute to Iran, to freedom, and to the thousands gathered before her.
