Iranian Americans confront pro-regime demonstrators

A shout spread across H Street NW last week when about 500 Iranian-Americans who support regime change in Iran marched toward a smaller group of pro-China socialists who had gathered two blocks from the White House, in support of the extremist clerics leading Iran.

“We are here for the freedom of Iran,” explained Jay Ghorbani, an Iranian-American, as he held his Labradoodle puppy, Bella, while other members of the fledgling group, National Solidarity Group for Iran, He walked with it.

We are against the religious mafia regime in Iran.”

The far-left activists who confronted them had gathered under bright green and yellow banners that were pulled down again this weekend reading “Stop the War in Iran.” But the organizers are not just “peace” activists, a Fox News Digital analysis of dozens of pages of communications conducted by protest organizers revealed.

Fox News Digital has identified at least 75 organizations that have protested in support of the regime in Iran since the war began, including 50 far-left, Marxist, socialist, or communist organizations; 22 These are Islamic organizations that support Islamism, or political theocracy; The remaining three are adjacent to Islamic socialism.

They are echoing the pro-regime messages expressed by the Chinese Communist Party in recent days when China sends military equipment to Iran, according to national security experts.

Last weekend, they coordinated demonstrations in 63 cities across 29 states plus Washington, D.C., using identical signs, chants and protest infrastructure, which is now available in digital toolkit, They are repeating the protests this weekend and in the coming days.

The lead regulators are funded by US-born tech mogul Neville Roy Singham, who is based in Shanghai, and lawmakers on the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Oversight Committee have accused the network of promoting the interests of the People’s Republic of China.

Singham did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

the Network funded by SINGHAM They include the People’s Forum Foundation, the Answer Coalition, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, CodePink Women for Peace, and the Palestinian Youth Movement, which helped organize these protests.

The Democratic Socialists of America, who helped elect Zahran Mamdani as mayor of New York City, also co-sponsored the protests. The organizations did not respond to requests for comment.

Iranian Americans walk their dogs to defy strict orders of the Islamic Republic of Iran banning dogs as pets as part of a protest March 7, 2026, in Washington, D.C., in support of US and Israeli military strikes in Iran. (Fox News Digital)

Global challenge

The standoff in the country’s capital reflects a broader conflict unfolding not only in Iran, but in the West as well.

from Phoenix to Dallas, Indianapolis, toronto and Manchester in the United KingdomHowever, expatriates are increasingly challenging far-left activists who accuse them of amplifying propaganda that favors the clerics who rule the Islamic Republic.

This weekend, Ghorbani and other Iranian Americans took to the streets again. They argue that their defense of secular democracy – and rejection of Islamism or theocracy – offers the strongest response to growing acts of extremism by Muslim ideologues.

Recent days have witnessed violent incidents in the city of Austin, Texas. New York; The city of Norfolk, Virginia, was permeated by shouts of “Allahu Akbar.”

At a protest against the regime in Iran, March 7, 2026, in Washington, D.C., Iranian American women march without covering their hair with the type of hijab that the Islamic Republic of Iran forces women to wear. (Fox News Digital)

“Unholy alliance”

These tensions reflect a political dynamic with deep historical roots.

In 1965, Time magazine published An article titled “The Unholy Alliance” bluntly describes “communists and Muslim fanatics” working together to oppose Iranian leader Shah Reza Pahlavi’s efforts to “modernize and Westernize Iran” as a secular democracy.

Time quoted Pahlavi as warning of “an unholy alliance between two extremist wings” and communist revolutionaries, whom he described as “unpatriotic and destructive reds.” Extremist MuslimsMany of them wear black robes, turbans and hijabs.

“This is the very familiar alliance, or what we call, the unholy alliance between the black and the red, that is, the communists and the people or the very reactionary classes,” Pahlavi said years later. “We always see it because they are against the progress and happiness of the country.”

It is an alliance now called the “Red-Green Alliance”, as green symbolizes the color of Islam.

Protesters host Jerusalem Day march in New York City: “Shame, shame on the United States!”

“Freedom for Iran” against the regime

Last weekend, an Iranian-American woman and another startup group, DCProtests4Iran, She confronted women wearing black abayas from the Manassas Mosque in northern Virginia, where the imams support the Iranian theocracy. With her hair blowing in the wind, she made a victory sign and shouted: “Down with the Islamic regime!”

Gazing down H Street NW at the Socialists, Reza Razavi, an engineer from Rockville, Maryland, and a DCProtests4Iran volunteer, said his group supports Pahlavi’s son, Reza Pahlavi, as the leader of a new transitional government that would bring about a “democratic Iran.”

“Freedom for Iran!” cried another Iranian-American woman, holding her Lhasa Apso dog, Cocoa, who was rescued in 2019 from Tehran, where the regime has ruled dog walking illegal in many cities.

At protests from London to Washington, D.C., Iranian diaspora activists say they are confronting far-left groups they accuse of stealing democracy from them since 1979, when they defended the extremist clerics who came to power in 1979 and ousted Pahlavi.

“It’s a culture war,” said Paul Mauro, a lawyer, former New York Police Department counterterrorism inspector, and current Fox News contributor.

“Marxism is perhaps the most insidious idea ever devised,” Mauro said. “Our culture has now become infected with a tolerance for Marxism that is being translated into a very dangerous political energy working with Islamists to undermine America as we know it.”

David Chung, organizing director at People’s Forum Inc., stands in Union Square to protest the war with Iran in New York, New York, March 7, 2026. (Rashid Omar Abbasi for Fox News Digital)

“Do you want a sign?”

Like clockwork, members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the ANSWER Alliance, and other socialist organizations arrived at 2:28 PM last weekend at the corner of 16th Street and H Street NW. One woman sipped iced coffee, while another pulled a red cart full of speakers. A third pushed a grocery cart filled with marching drums and fluorescent yellow signs reading “Stop the War on Iran!”

A young woman pulled out about a dozen signs, asking, “Do you want a sign? A sign? Anyone want a sign?”

Tourists looked away as far-left activists, including CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin and DC coordinator Olivia DeNucci, arrived with a new protest banner. Ignoring the crowd of approaching Iranian Americans, Benjamin posed for a photo with Korean Americans who support China, Iran, and communism in North Korea.

The group quickly broke into the familiar anti-American chants heard at protests for years, but this time they were muffled by the chants of Iranian demonstrators chanting “USA! USA!”

Asked about Singham’s funding of socialist protest sponsors, Benjamin said: “I’d rather not talk about that.”

Dancing in the streets in defiance

Minutes later, the Iranian-American groups approached the corner of L Street NW and stopped about 200 yards from the far-left activists on 16th Street NW. They played Iranian music and danced.

In defiance of strict interpretations of Islam, families walked pet dogs near Bella and Cocoa while women screamed with their hair in the wind, and men and women danced freely next to each other to Iranian pop music, acts that are mostly banned in Iran. This scene represents a challenge to the strict religious rules imposed by Iranian clerics, who banned pet dogs, forced women to cover their hair and suppressed music, dancing and dissent.

An Iranian-American woman smiled and slowly raised her middle finger toward the socialist activists, their chants of “Down, down USA” drowned out by Persian music.

During a protest on March 7, 2026, in Washington, D.C., members of the Socialism and Liberation Party gave children chants supporting the regime in Iran and filmed the children for videos they later posted on social media. (Isra Nomani/Fox News Digital)

Across the police line, field guards from the Socialism and Liberation Party surrounded elementary-age girls wearing black head coverings in front of the microphone, filming them closely as the children slurred their words, reading slogans from the phone while the activists urged them.

When a girl appeared in the shot, the marshal who was filming the canned cheers tried to push her away.

“These people support terrorists,” said an Iranian-American, whose reform-era Iranian flag slung over his shoulder like a cloak bearing the lion’s emblem. “It’s us against them.”

“We do not support the regime,” Siamak Aran, an organizer of the National Solidarity for Iran group, said as Iranian Americans marched behind him chanting: “USA! USA!”

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Fox News Digital’s Aziana Solomon contributed to this report.