Protests by a Group of Opponents of the Islamic Republic Coincide with Rouhani's Presence at the UN

Hassan Rouhani, the President of Iran, entered the United Nations building on Wednesday, September 20, to participate in the 72nd annual session of the UN General Assembly. At the same time, supporters of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran and some other groups gathered in front of the UN and chanted slogans against the Islamic Republic. Among the speakers at this gathering were several American political figures, including John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the UN, and Eliot Engel, a Democratic representative in the US Congress. In this context, according to the website of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, Mr. Engel stated: "The people of Iran are a great people who have been stopped by the ruling regime of their country. We will not allow the Iranian regime to continue its repression. We will fight for a free Iran. Change in Iran will be brought about by the youth of Iran. The people of Iran have always been at the forefront, and it is better that this regime, which has repressed the people of Iran, is overthrown as soon as possible." The official media of this organization described the protesters' demands in Manhattan, New York, as a "call for the expulsion of the execution record-holding regime from the United Nations" and "seeking justice for the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in 1988 and the prosecution of the perpetrators of genocide and crimes against humanity." The Fox News network also interviewed Sona Samsami, a representative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran in the US, about the goals of this protest, and she stated that "we want the American people to know that the people of Iran do not want a clerical regime" and "the only answer to the crisis in Iran is regime change by the people." The National Council of Resistance of Iran is the political umbrella of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran and smaller organizations allied with it. Sona Samsami, referring to the executions of 1988 in Iran, said: "The regime officials who were responsible for the massacre of 1988 must be held accountable and tried under international law." Most of the executed prisoners that year were members of groups such as the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, the Tudeh Party of Iran, various groups of Fedayeen, and other leftist groups who had previously been tried and were serving their sentences. Many of those executed were buried anonymously in mass graves in the Khavaran cemetery in Tehran. The exact names and numbers of those executed that year are still not fully known. The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights has reported that the number of these executed political prisoners is at least 1,879. However, Ayatollah Montazeri, in his memoirs, stated that this number was between 2,800 and 3,800, emphasizing that he does not remember the exact figure. The officials of the Islamic Republic have accused the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran of carrying out terrorist operations and assassinating several high-ranking officials of the Islamic Republic and military and security forces.