General Todd Wolters, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told the crowd that the NCRI has prepared for decades to be an alternative to the regime, and highlighted the role of the Resistance Units. “This regime exports terrorism and crushes civil life,” he said. “The National Council of Resistance of Iran can and will deliver on this mandate and has prepared, researched, educated, and practiced for decades and decades.” He praised the plan put forward by Mrs. Rajavi and underlined that “to the 90-plus million citizens of Iran: You deserve this change, and you deserve it soonest.”
Linda Chavez, former director of the White House Office of Public Liaison, echoed the same message, noting the size and determination of the rally. “Thousands of you have come to New York to demand an end to the Khamenei regime,” she said, stressing that the real alternative is already in place. “During the more than 30 years since, I have gotten to know the leadership of the PMOI/MEK and have happily supported their long struggle for the Iranian people,” she said.
Chavez highlighted her visits to Ashraf 3 and emphasized that Rajavi’s Ten-Point Plan “remains today a roadmap for a democratic, secular, non-nuclear Iran.” Rejecting any return to monarchy, she said, “The Shah was a murderous dictator. Iran’s future does not lie in giving power to his son, who even boasts of his relationship with the IRGC.” She told the rally, “The Iranian people deserve better,” and delivered a direct message to President Pezeshkian: “Change is coming.”
Samuel Brownback, former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, Governor of Kansas, and U.S. Senator, applauded the scale and persistence of the Resistance. “You’ve shown the world what this regime in Iran is about,” he said, calling it “a terrorist regime, a nuclear weapon-seeking regime, a regime of slavery.”
He described the movement as “one of the first, if not the first, women-led revolutions in world history” and stressed the youth-driven nature of the campaign. “As I see all these young people in front of me here, this is a youth-led movement in Iran for change,” Brownback said.
Moslem Eskandar Filabi, former Iranian wrestling champion and chairman of the Sports Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), addressed the crowd as “the voice of millions of Iranians who live under the rule of a repressive regime.” He described Iran as a country where “every voice raised for freedom, every voice raised for justice, is met with imprisonment, torture, and the gallows,” and noted that executions, particularly of youth and minorities, rank among the highest in the world.
He accused the regime of exporting repression through terrorism and hostage diplomacy, but praised the Resistance Units as “the hope of the oppressed people of Iran for liberation from the clutches of this criminal, corrupt, and dictatorial regime.” Filabi condemned appeasement as “a stain of disgrace on contemporary history” and urged the United Nations to move beyond inaction and prosecute Tehran’s leaders for crimes against humanity.
Young Iranian students actively participated in the gathering.