Thousands of Iranian-Americans from across the U.S. are expected to gather Monday outside the United Nations headquarters in New York City during the international organization's 81st General Assembly to draw attention to demands to end to political executions and repression in Iran and voice support for a democratic alternative to the ruling theocracy, organizers say.

The rally is being organized by the National Council of Resistance of Iran and its president-elect, Maryam Rajavi.

The rally is set for Monday, when President Trump is set to address the Assembly, and continue Tuesday as a protest, while the Iran President Masoud Pezeshkian is due to take the podium.

The U.S. and Iran have been at war since late February.

Among those expected to participate in the rally Monday are a bipartisan group of U.S. dignitaries, human rights advocates, former political prisoners, and supporters of a free Iran.

The council says Gen. Keith Kellogg (Ret.), a former U.S. special presidential envoy for Ukraine; Gen. Wesley Clark (Ret.), a former supreme allied commander Europe; and Ambassador Carla Sands.

The Trump administration has allowed the Iranian delegation to attend next week's Assembly meeting but with some restrictions, a State Department spokesperson said Thursday. 

Organizers, along with human rights organizations, are highlighting an increase in political executions in Iran since mid-March.

Within a recent, five-month span, from March 18 to the end of August 2026, Iran’s authorities announced the executions of 29 people in connection with recent protests, according to Human Rights Watch. 

At least 40 political dissidents, primarily members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK) and dissidents arrested during the January uprising, have been executed, while over a hundred political prisoners remain on death row, says the National Council of Resistance, a parliamentary-in-exile founded that functions as an opposition to Iran's clerical government.