Demonstrators against the Iranian regime protest outside of the United Nations headquarters Tuesday. (CRISTINA MATOUZZI/AP)
Thousands gathered outside U.N. headquarters in New York City on Tuesday to protest Iran’s regime and demand an end to the execution of political prisoners and the establishment of a free democracy.
The protest was organized by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the New York Post reported.
Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the organization, said she was angry that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was at the U.N. General Assembly.
“As long as this regime remains in power, repression, executions, terrorism, and warmongering will continue,” Rajavi said in a video call-in reported by the Post. “The solution is regime change by the Iranian people and their organized resistance.”
Iran has hanged 56 people on national security charges since March, and more than 100 people are facing death sentences under the regime, the United Nations said.
Iranian activist Zahra Amanpour told the Post that all Iranians deserve freedom.
“The unfinished promise of generations of Iranian struggle is the right of the Iranian people themselves to determine what comes next,” Amanpour said.
“That is the Iran I believe in, an Iran where women and men are equal, beliefs are freely chosen, leaders are elected rather than inherited, and governments belong to the people rather than the people belonging to their governments,” Amanpour added.
The NCRI has called for an end to all mullahs and shahs in the country, demanding popular sovereignty, free elections, separation of religion and state, gender equality, abolition of the death penalty, and a nonnuclear Iran, the Post reported.
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