{"id":149340,"date":"2026-03-02T00:43:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T00:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/149340\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T00:43:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T00:43:29","slug":"nyc-marchers-celebrate-killing-of-irans-supreme-leader-ayatollah-ali-khamenei-praise-trump-netanyahu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/149340\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC marchers celebrate killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, praise Trump, Netanyahu"},"content":{"rendered":"

Supporters of the Iranian royal family from Long Island and\u00a0across the metropolitan area marched in Manhattan on Sunday \u2014 many carrying Iranian, American and Israeli\u00a0flags \u2014\u00a0to celebrate the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei <\/a>and praise the U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign\u00a0that killed him.<\/p>\n

About 500 marchers, many of them\u00a0Iranian Americans, called for a return\u00a0of Crown\u00a0Prince Reza Pahlavi<\/a>, son of the Iranian Shah deposed in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Others offered their appreciation to President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister\u00a0Benjamin Netanyahu.<\/p>\n

Stony Brook University professor Ali Khosronejad, who carried his young daughter on his shoulders during the march, said he came from Port Jefferson “to thank Trump and Bibi Netanyahu for what\u00a0they did for Persians.”<\/p>\n

Khosronejad, who has lived in the United States\u00a0for more than 15 years, added:\u00a0“It\u2019s been so difficult for people inside Iran. Our family, friends, relatives, friends are asking for help \u2014 they\u2019re struck with a murderous regime that just kills them in cold blood.”<\/p>\n

Tens of thousands of people may have been killed in a\u00a0January-February crackdown in Iran on demonstrators<\/a> against the government, activists and human rights groups have said.<\/p>\n

Saturday’s\u00a0joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran killed\u00a0Khamenei and other senior Iranian officials. More than 200 people had been killed since the start of the strikes as of late Sunday, according to Iranian leaders. On Saturday, protesters gathered in Manhattan to decry the attack.<\/p>\n

Sunday’s march began outside the United Nations and made its way through Manhattan streets before ending in Times Square. NYPD officers kept watch and no incidents or disruptions were reported.<\/p>\n

Participants\u00a0shouted “azadi” (Farsi for “freedom”), “USA USA USA,” and “President Trump Thank You.”\u00a0Some\u00a0carried banners declaring “Make Iran Great Again.”<\/p>\n

Upon reaching Times Square, many\u00a0sang Iran\u2019s old national anthem and listened to speeches praising the U.S. and denigrating the U.N. Neither the U.S. or Israel sought U.N. permission for the strike.<\/p>\n

“Thank you Trump, thank you Marco Rubio!” Iraj Javid, a march leader from New Jersey shouted with joy.<\/p>\n

The march was organized by “Lion and Sun NY,” a group whose name references the symbols on the old, Shah-era Iranian flag, and whose Instagram handle says it is \u201cA movement for a free Iran, rooted in the legacy of the Lion & Sun and led by Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marchers held photographs of\u00a0Pahlavi, who lives in exile in Maryland and whom they hope will return to Iran. Pahlavi is the son of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran who centralized power and violently suppressed dissent after a U.S. and British-backed 1953 coup<\/a> ousted a democratically elected government that tried to nationalize the oil industry.<\/p>\n

It is not clear how widely the prince is supported within Iran, where protests earlier this year centered around skyrocketing inflation, corruption and political suppression.<\/p>\n

Javid told Newsday many marchers came from New Jersey\u2019s large Iranian-American community, though some also came from Long Island, where many Iranian Jews have settled.<\/p>\n

Javid said he is hoping for a constitutional monarchy “similar to Scandinavia,” with an elected head of state, though others in the crowd hope Pahlavi is more than\u00a0a figurehead.<\/p>\n

“We want Reza to return as the president of the country. We want him to take over \u2014\u00a0he\u2019s going to do great for the country,” said Yoni Taberi, of New Jersey,\u00a0who described himself as a Persian Jew.<\/p>\n

Golby Sai, of Connecticut, held a sign that read “Trump’s Iran War [not equal to] Iraq or\u00a0Afghanistan”<\/p>\n

Sai said she is registered Republican who disagrees\u00a0with Trump on many issues, but supports the current war.<\/p>\n

“It’s not like the USA is going to put troops on the ground and try and create some type of liberal democracy for which there is no institutions and no culture,” she said. “All the people needed was for the top echelons of the country to be bombed so that when they go out into the streets, nobody shoots them.”<\/p>\n

With AP<\/p>\n

\"Peter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Supporters of the Iranian royal family from Long Island and\u00a0across the metropolitan area marched in Manhattan on Sunday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,7299,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-149340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-nation","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}