March 9 (UPI) — Iranian-Americans rallied Friday in Washington, D.C., to call for a regime change in Tehran and ask the U.S. government to label Iran’s military and intelligence agency as terror organizations.
Members and supporters of the Organization of Iranian American Communities gathered for speeches at Freedom Plaza on Pennsylvania Avenue about two blocks from the White House. The group seeks an uprising in Iran and regime change to establish a democratic, secular and non-nuclear nation.
U.S. lawmakers such as Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, and Brad Sherman, D-Calif., spoke at the event in person or by video feed, as well as Maryan Rajavi, president-elect of the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran.
In prepared remarks, Rajavi noted that the rally was held on International Women’s Day and congratulated women fighting for equality under a “misogynist regime.”
“On this day, Iran and Iranians take pride in the women of Iran who have risen up and waged one of the greatest resistances of the modern era,” she said.
“They have given tens of thousands of martyrs, prisoners and torture victims, and for four decades have been active on all the fields of battle.”
Rajavi called on the U.S. State Department to designate Iran’s military, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the Ministry of Intelligence as foreign terrorist organizations.
“Doing so would be a positive message to the Iranian people, and a decisive message against the clerical regime,” she said.
After the speeches, the protesters marched down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House.
