BERLIN, Feb. 7, 2026 — Tens of thousands gathered at the Brandenburg Gate on Saturday despite freezing temperatures, marking the anniversary of Iran’s 1979 anti-monarchical revolution and voicing support for ongoing protests inside Iran. The Express reported that “more than 100,000” people attended, while organizers said additional participants and speakers joined remotely after weather disruptions complicated travel.
Across the program, speakers converged on a common political message: rejection of both the shah’s legacy and clerical rule, confidence in the resistance’s organizational capacity — particularly the PMOI-led Resistance Units — and support for a transition based on the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) Ten-Point Plan.
In her keynote address, Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the NCRI, declared that the “countdown” to overthrow had begun. She described the Resistance Units as the uprising’s organized backbone and warned that monarchist slogans such as “Long Live the Shah” risk “hijacking” the movement and deepening divisions.
Stressing the rally’s central chant — “No to Shah, no to the mullahs” — Rajavi outlined a post-overthrow roadmap centered on a democratic republic, separation of religion and state, gender equality, and a non-nuclear Iran. She proposed convening a constituent assembly within months to draft a new constitution and urged the international community to focus on practical support, including open internet access and legal accountability for senior officials. Regime change, she insisted, must be led by Iranians themselves.
Several prominent Western political figures echoed those themes. Charles Michel, former president of the European Council, linked Berlin’s own history of division and democratic renewal to Iran’s trajectory. “No wall is eternal,” he told the crowd, arguing that Europe must stop treating Tehran’s rulers as a permanent fixture. Appeasement, he said, has failed — but neither can foreign military intervention deliver a stable solution. What is needed, he argued, is an organized democratic alternative capable of managing a transition.
Mike Pompeo framed the moment as revolutionary rather than cyclical unrest. While emphasizing that “the regime cannot be overthrown from outside,” he pointed to the resistance’s structured networks as evidence of internal strength. He described the NCRI’s Ten-Point Plan as answering two recurring Western questions: whether a viable alternative exists and what follows regime collapse.
From Germany, Peter Altmaier urged Europe to abandon hopes of reform from within Iran’s ruling system and to align policy with a clear democratic endpoint. He called for tougher sanctions and more consistent media coverage, describing a free press as a “lifeline” for those confronting censorship.
Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger framed the rally as a test of Europe’s human rights commitments, demanding the release of detainees and accountability for executions and repression. Kurdish representatives, including Jalal Khoshkelam and Sasan Khatouni, stressed pluralism and equal citizenship, warning against any return to personality-based rule — “crowned or clerical.”
Youth speaker Hiva Mohammadi closed by underscoring organization as the resistance’s defining strength. Diaspora demonstrations, she said, are meant to signal continuity: “You are not alone.” The message reverberating through Berlin was unequivocal — Iran’s future, participants argued, must not recycle authoritarianism under a different symbol, but instead move toward a pluralist, democratic republic.