About Lion & Sun

Hossein Moshasha

Organizer

Hossein Moshasha earned a degree in Economics and Political Science and later attended Case Western Reserve University to pursue an MBA. Due to financial circumstances, Hossein left the program and entered the workforce.

In 1983, Hossein joined the Young Iranian Organization for Constitutional Monarchy (سازمان جوانان طرفدار مشروطه سلطنتی), participating in numerous demonstrations against the Islamic Republic and Ayatollah Khomeini. Members of the organization received political training from Dr. Dadashpoor, who also served as a political trainer to Prince Reza Pahlavi. Among the group's demonstrations was a car rally held following Khomeini's death.

As political circumstances evolved, Hossein helped organize the Constitutionalists Organization (سازمان مشروطه خواهان). Three years ago, Hossein became associated with the DC Protest organization. Hossein currently serves as a member of the organization's board.

Sohrab Navabi

Organizer

Sohrab Nabavi came to Berkeley, California, in 1970 to pursue his education. During his studies, he became involved with the local SAVAK organization under the supervision of Safinia, then the Iranian consul in Berkeley, and opposed the activities of the Confederation of Iranian Students.

In 1976, after earning a degree in Industrial Engineering in the United States, Sohrab returned to Iran and entered government service with the Industrial Development and Renovation Organization of Iran.

In 1979, following the Islamic Revolution, he was among the organizers of a march by supporters of Iran's Constitution opposing Ayatollah Khomeini. According to Sohrab, his involvement led to his imprisonment for 26 days in Tehran's District 5. He states that he was subsequently sentenced to death by Shahab al-Din Eshraghi, Khomeini's son-in-law, but managed to escape and arrived in Washington, D.C. in early 1980.

In 1984, following Prince Reza Pahlavi's arrival in Washington, Sohrab worked alongside figures including Valians and General Khalil Shojaei to establish the Guardians of the Constitutional Monarchy (سازمان نگهبانان مشروطه پادشاهی), which he describes as their first political organization.

Sohrab later helped establish a number of political organizations, including Samaneh Padeshahi, and eventually founded the Central Headquarters of Iranian Monarchists (ستاد مرکزی پادشاهی‌خواهان ایران). He currently serves as Secretary-General of the organization, which he states comprises 17 monarchist organizations.

Bahram Forouzanfar

Organizer

Bahram has been active in Iranian political and civic organizing for more than four decades, helping organize over hundreds of demonstrations, gatherings, conferences, and public events in the Washington metropolitan area, across the United States, and abroad. His activism has focused on opposition to the Islamic Republic, support for constitutional monarchy, and mobilizing the Iranian diaspora. He has also helped organize numerous meetings, conferences, conventions, and online discussions involving Prince Reza Pahlavi.

While studying as an engineering student in the US, Bahram and sixteen other Iranian students organized against the Confederation of Iranian Students, whose local factions included communist and Islamist activists opposed to the Pahlavi monarchy. After their group was attacked several times by the Confederation, they retained legal counsel and pursued assault and battery charges, leading to disciplinary action against several students and increased scrutiny of disruptive and violent campus protests.

In 1983, Bahram and several university colleagues founded the Young Iranian Organization for Constitutional Monarchy. The group engaged the Iranian diaspora through demonstrations, conferences, publications, and community outreach, including the publication Baznegari and Iran Yara, a television program broadcast on local Channel 56. Bahram and his colleagues also maintained regular contact with Prince Reza Pahlavi, meeting with him several times each year. In 1989, Bahram helped organize a Washington-area rally following the death of Ayatollah Khomeini.

Between 1997 and 2002, Bahram conducted an independent fact-finding effort inside Iran, interviewing more than 1,200 Iranians from varied backgrounds to better understand political and social conditions and the relationship between developments inside Iran and diaspora activism. He used these interviews to exchange information between Iranians inside and outside the country and to report his findings to Prince Reza Pahlavi.

Bahram later helped establish the National Union for Democracy in Iran (NUFDI) around 2002, the Congress of Iranian Solidarity in 2004, and subsequently Samaneh Padeshahi. Following the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in 2022, he helped establish DC Protests 4 Iran. Today, he continues his decades-long activism as a member of Lion & Sun DC.

Mina Rezvani

Organizer

Mina Rezvani has been active in political and cultural affairs throughout Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Maryland since 1997.

She graduated from the University of Tehran with a degree in Biology while simultaneously studying Oral and Dental Health at National University of Iran.

Mina has maintained a longstanding involvement with the nonprofit Khaneh Iran (Iran-America Civic Association), which was registered in Virginia in 1992. Since 1999, she has served as the organization's president, working to provide civic services and promote Iran's rich cultural heritage under the historic Lion and Sun tricolor flag throughout the Washington metropolitan area.

Support for the Pahlavi family and its contributions to Iran has long been central to Mina's activities. She regards Prince Reza Pahlavi as the rightful sovereign of Iran and as a figure capable of leading the country's national restoration.

Susan Allaie

Organizer

Susan Allaie is an Iranian-American author and activist whose opposition to the Islamic Republic began in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution. She is the author of When I Said No to Gods!, published in 2023, which recounts her family's experiences under the Islamic Republic and their struggle against political and religious repression.

According to Susan, her father, a prosecutor in Iran, was ordered following Ayatollah Khomeini's rise to power to approve the executions of a number of government officials. He refused, instead releasing several individuals on bail, and was consequently shot in the chest by regime forces and subjected to torture.

In the years that followed, concerns for Susan's safety led her family to arrange her marriage to a relative who supported the new Islamic government. She later moved to the United States with her husband, and the couple had two sons. Eight years later, when her husband sought to return to Iran and Susan refused to accompany him, he took their children to Iran without her consent.

Susan spent more than seven years fighting to bring her sons back to the United States. After their return in 2009–2010, the disputed 2009 Iranian presidential election and the resulting protest movement renewed her political activism. Since then, she has continued to support Iranians inside the country and throughout the diaspora who oppose the Islamic Republic and advocate for political change.

Susan remains committed to the establishment of a free Iran and supports Prince Reza Pahlavi as a leader of Iran's opposition movement. She continues her activism alongside fellow Iranians in the United States and abroad, advocating for an end to the Islamic Republic and a democratic future for Iran.