Thousands of critics of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s government gathered in front of the United Nations headquarters at the onset of the 80th U.N. General Assembly last week to protest the arrival of several Iranian delegates.
The Free Iran UN Rally 2025, organized by the Organization of Iranian American Communities, an advocacy group that promotes democracy in Iran, criticized the presence of Masoud Pezeshkian, the President of Iran. The group supports Maryam Rajavi, the Iranian dissident and president-elect of the National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI), a political organization that rejects Iran’s dictatorship.
The crowd was blanketed with NCRI flags in opposition to the Iranian regime and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been in power since 1989. The arrival of President Pezeshkian at the U.N. angered those in support of Rajavi.
“We believe that seat belongs to her and the people of Iran, and not to a murderer to come and address the General Assembly,” said Shirin Nariman.
Nariman, who was arrested as a political prisoner in Iran at the age of 17, spent 2 years in jail before escaping and becoming an Iranian political activist in the United States. “We believe Iranian people have the tools and the will to change the regime,” she said. “We just need the right policies to be made.”
The organization is not alone in its criticism of human rights abuses in Iran.
The UN found Iran committed “crimes against humanity” after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old, was killed while in custody after being arrested for not wearing a veil by Iran’s “morality” police in 2022. According to several reports, the Iranian government has also suppressed free speech, tortured journalists and activists, and codified gender discrimination. Within the past nine months, at least 1,000 people were executed by the regime, Iran Human Rights organization found.
At the U.N., Iranian delegates were expected to broach the topic of political protests and assassinations of dissenters, which many protestors found sardonic given the anti-democratic conditions in Iran.
“I think what the regime is doing and what the world is doing is failing the people of Iran,” said Yalda Bulorchi, a 16-year-old Iranian activist who has had family members killed by the current regime.
Ali Soltani, one of the protest’s organizers and an electrical engineer in Mequon, Wisconsin, left Iran in 1978 ahead of the installation of Khomeini.
“This is a regime that’s not representative of the people,” said Soltani, who came to New York City solely to attend the protest. He underscored the dangers Iranian activists face even at demonstrations outside of Iran.
Assassination attempts on Iranian activists have been well catalogued, and Soltani believes he’s been targeted too. “I actually have been attacked in Milwaukee by the regime agents because I was active on the internet,” he said.
The morning protest stretched well past noon, with flags and garments emblazoned with #FreeIran littering the streets and cobblestone near the U.N. headquarters. Soltani, Nariman and numerous other protesters all echoed a sustained commitment to opposing the current regime, despite the danger.
“That’s why we’re here,” said Soltani. “We are really getting to a point where people are going to rise up and get with it.”
Nariman agreed. “I think we all made our decision a long time ago that we are going to fight no matter what happens to us.”