On Tuesday, September 24, coinciding with the United Nations General Assembly meeting, freedom-loving Iranians held a large demonstration in front of the United Nations building to show the world the anger and outrage of the Iranian people at the presence of the Iranian regime’s president at the UN headquarters.
On this day, as the gathering of Iranians coincided with the speeches of the UN Secretary-General, the President of the United States, and several other world leaders at the General Assembly, the large and unique protest, with a dense and passionate crowd, demonstrated that the Iranian regime is widely hated by the Iranian people. It also showed that the Iranian Resistance stands firm with its democratic alternative to the mullahs’ tyrannical rule.
26-#NewYork rally on September 24, calls for an end to appeasement and int'l support for #IranRegimeChange. Pezeshkian presence at #UNGA79 is an insult given 180+ executions since August.#Time4FirmIranPolicy #No2Appeasement #2024FreeIranNYRally #FreeIran10PointPlan pic.twitter.com/M7Fdt0RmZJ
— Iran Freedom (@4FreedominIran) September 24, 2024
News agencies broadcasted footage and images of the protesting crowd from New York and reported that on the same day that Masoud Pezeshkian was set to speak at the General Assembly, a protest against the regime was held outside the UN building.
ABC News reported: “Thousands of Iranian-Americans held a protest outside of the United Nations demanding justice for victims of Iran’s regime. The demonstration stretched an entire avenue. Protesters filled the entire block on 47th Street. They have covered the plaza with the faces of those they say have fallen for freedom… Political figures, human rights advocates, and Iranian survivors are denouncing the nearly 200 executions carried out since Masoud Pezeshkian took office.”
The New York rally, with a large, multi-generational crowd, featuring flags, banners, placards, and speeches by American personalities, along with women, youth, and former political prisoners, lasted for several hours.
In this rally, speakers pointed to the firm boycott of the sham elections of the Iranian regime by the people of Iran, and they considered Pezeshkian’s presence at the UN headquarters an insult to millions of Iranians and a trampling of the values upon which the United Nations and its principles were founded.
23-#NewYork rally on September 24, calls for an end to appeasement and int'l support for #IranRegimeChange. Pezeshkian presence at #UNGA79 is an insult given 180+ executions since August. #Time4FirmIranPolicy #No2Appeasement #2024FreeIranNYRally #FreeIran10PointPlan pic.twitter.com/WKvcaSxdcP
— Iran Freedom (@4FreedominIran) September 24, 2024
Senator Ted Cruz, a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations and Judiciary Committees, expressed solidarity with the demonstrators, saying: “The time is long passed for the Iranian regime to end up discarded into the ash heap of history… Despite their horrific record of human rights abuses, Iran’s leaders, bizarrely, are welcomed at the UN General Assembly… They’re allowed to propagandize and to lie. It is an abdication of the principles of peace, justice, human rights and respect enshrined in the UN Charter.”
Former U.S. Ambassador to Morocco Marc Ginsberg said: “[Pezeshkian] can’t really hide the fact that this is a terror regime. It is unreformable. It is unsalvageable, and it is incurable. You and I know that no matter who the Ayatollahs place at the top of the cabal, dictators never ever change their spots.”
Professor Alan Dershowitz, honorary professor at Harvard Law School and another speaker at the Iranian rally, said: “The current regime, let there be no mistake about it, is the most dangerous regime in the world since the Nazis assumed power in the 1930s in Germany…. We must fight this regime and replace it with a regime of secular democracy of the kind that [the NCRI] has put forward with its brilliant 10-point program.”
Freedom-loving Iranians carried images and placards of the Tabas mine disaster, expressing sympathy with the victims’ families and voicing their anger and grief over the death of their fellow Iranian workers.
In a message to the rally, Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said: “Your powerful gathering today, and over the past four decades, has confronted the United Nations and its member states, especially the Western powers, with this critical question: What is the president of the regime of executions and massacres doing at the United Nations? Isn’t the United Nations founded on its charter, rooted in ‘faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person’? Then why is the representative of a regime, which, according to the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran, has committed genocide and crimes against humanity, present at the United Nations?”
The New York rally marked another golden chapter in the political and international confrontation of the Iranian Resistance with the religious dictatorship, showcasing to the world the unwavering determination of the Iranian people to overthrow the mullahs’ regime and establish a democratic republic in a free Iran tomorrow.
Message to the Rally of Freedom-Loving Iranians Protesting the Presence of the Clerical Regime’s President at the @UN#UNGA79#2024FreeIranNYRallypic.twitter.com/PenoqjXwpO
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) September 24, 2024