Iranian Americans confront pro-regime protesters

Washington, D.C. – “You’re hypocrites!”

The shout cut across H Street NW last week as about 500 Iranian Americans supporting regime change in Iran marched toward a smaller group of pro-China socialists gathered two blocks away across from the White House, backing the radical clerics leading Iran.

“We are here for freedom of Iran,” Jay Gorbani, an Iranian American, explained, as he held his Labradoodle puppy, Bella, while other members of a fledgling group – National Solidarity Group for Iran – marched by. 

“We are against the religious mafia regime of Iran.”

The far-left activists they confronted had assembled under bright green and yellow signs pulled out again this weekend, reading “STOP WAR IN IRAN,” But the organizers aren’t simply “peace” activists, a Fox News Digital analysis of scores of pages of communications by protest organizers reveals. 

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 organizations that are far-left, Marxist, socialist or communist, 22 that are Muslim organizations that support Islamism, or political theocracy, and the remaining three that are socialist-Islamist adjacent.

They parrot the pro-regime messages that the Chinese Communist Party has expressed in recent days, as China sends military equipment to Iran, according to national security experts.

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

The main organizers are funded by an American-born tech tycoon, Neville Roy Singham, based in Shanghai, and lawmakers in the House Ways and Means Committee and House Oversight Committee have accused the network of promoting the interests of the People’s Republic of China. Singham didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment.

The Singham-funded network includes the People’s Forum Inc., the ANSWER Coalition, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, CodePink Women for Peace and the Palestinian Youth Movement, which has helped organize these protests. The Democratic Socialists of America, which helped elect Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York, also co-sponsored the protests. The organizations didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Iranian Americans walk with their dogs to defy strict edits of the Islamic Republic of Iran that ban dogs as pets, as part of a protest on March 7, 2026, in Washington, D.C., supporting U.S. and Israeli military strikes in Iran. (Fox News Digital)

Global Defiance

The confrontation in the nation’s capital reflects a broader struggle unfolding not only in Iran but also in the West.

From Phoenix to Dallas, Indianapolis, Toronto and Manchester in the U.K., members of the diaspora are increasingly challenging far-left activists they accuse of amplifying propaganda that favors the clerical rulers Islamic Republic.

This weekend, Gorbani and other Iranian Americans took to the streets again. They argue their advocacy for a secular democracy – and rejection of Islamism, or theocracy – offers the strongest response to rising acts of extremism by Muslim ideologues. In recent days, incidents of violence in Austin, Tex., New York and Norfolk, Va., have been punctuated by shouts of Allahu Akbar, or “God is great.

In a protest against the regime in Iran on Saturday, March 7, 2026, in Washington, D.C., Iranian American women march without covering their hair with the type of headscarves 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, headlined “Unholy Alliance,” bluntly describing “the Communists and fanatical Moslems” working together to oppose ​​Iranian leader Shah Reza Pahlavi’s efforts to “modernize and Westernize Iran” as a secular democracy.

Time quoted Pahlavi warning of “an unholy alliance between two extremist wings,” communist revolutionaries that he called “unpatriotic, destructive Reds,” and radical Muslims, many wearing black robes, turbans and headscarves.

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

It’s an alliance now called the “red-green alliance,” with green symbolizing the color of Islam.

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‘Freedom for Iran’ v. the Regime

This past weekend, an Iranian American woman with another nascent group, DCProtests4Iran, faced off against women in black robes from the Manassas Mosque in northern Virginia, where mosque leaders support the Iranian theocracy. Her hair loose in the wind, she flashed a “V” for victory and shouted, “Down with the Islamic regime!”

Staring down H Street NW at the socialists, Reza Rezavi, an engineer from Rockville, Md., and a volunteer with DCProtests4Iran, said his group supports Pahlavi’s son, Reza Pahlavi, as the leader of a new transitional government that would realize a “democratic Iran.”

“Freedom for Iran!” screamed another Iranian American woman, holding her Lhasaapso dog, Cocoa, rescued in 2019 from Tehran, where the regime has ruled dog walking illegal in many cities.

Across protests from London to Washington, D.C., Iranian diaspora activists say they are confronting far-left groups they accuse of stealing democracy from them, dating back to 1979, when they defended radical clerics who came to power in 1979, overthrowing Pahlavi. Singham didn’t respond to requests for comment.

“It’s cultural warfare,” said Paul Mauro, an attorney, former New York Police Department counterterrorism inspector and a current Fox News contributor.

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

David Chung, organizing director at the People’s Forum Inc., sets up in Union Square to protest the war with Iran in New York, N.Y., on Saturday, March 7, 2026. He carries signs with the website domain for the Party for Socialism and Liberation. (Rashid Umar Abbasi for Fox News Digital)

‘Would You Like a Sign?’

LIke clockwork, members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the ANSWER Coalition and other socialist organizations had arrived at 2:28 p.m. last weekend to the corner of 16th and H Street NW. One woman sipped an iced coffee, while another pulled a red wagon piled with megaphones. A third pushed a grocery cart filled with a marching drum and fluorescent yellow signs reading “STOP THE WAR ON IRAN!” 

A young woman dragged a dozen or so signs asking, “Would you like a sign? Sign? Anyone like a sign?”

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

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

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

Dancing in the Streets in Defiance

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

In defiance of strict interpretations of Islam, families walked pet dogs near Bella and Cocoa, as women shouted with their hair in the wind, and men and women freely danced beside each other to Iranian pop music, acts mostly banned in Iran. The scene stood in defiance of the strict religious rules imposed by Iran’s clerics, who have barred 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 at the socialist activists, their chants of “Down, down with the USA,” drowned out by music blaring in Farsi.

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

Across the police line, field marshals from the Party for Socialism and Liberation corralled elementary-aged girls swaddled in black headscarves to the microphone, filming them close up as the children stumbled over their words, reading chants from a phone as activists egged them on.

When a girl got in the shot, the field marshal filming the canned chanting tried to shoo her away. 

“Those people are supporting terrorists,” said one Iranian American with the reform-era Iranian flag draped over his shoulder, like a cape, featuring a lion emblem. “We are against them.”

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

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