Masih Alinejad

Iranian Journalist & Activist | President of @WLCongress | Founder of #WhiteWednesdays, #MyCameraIsMyWeapon, #MyStealthyFreedom | زن زندگی آزادی

[Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih]

I am a woman from a small village in northern Iran.
Jailed for protesting.
Beaten for showing my hair.
Expelled from parliament for exposing their corruption.
Forced into exile.
My sister was paraded on state TV to publicly disown me.
My brother was imprisoned as punishment.
My mother was interrogated to stop her from expressing love for me.
Assassins were sent to New York, three times, to kill me.
And now I’m supposed to sit next to them at the U.N. Security Council.
Thanks @USAmbUN for finally giving me a seat, so I can call out the regime, and the U.N. leadership that still legitimizes it.
This is my full address to the UN Security Council about
#IranRevoIution2026 and a massacre unfolding in Iran.

[The Story @TheStoryFNC]

REASONABLE KILLERS

WATCH: Iranian activist @AlinejadMasih calls on President Trump to ditch prospect of reform and “take lead” against terrorist regime

[The Story @TheStoryFNC]

“They want to kill President Trump…”

EXCLUSIVE: Iranian activist @AlinejadMasih says transnational targeting of dissidents “in the DNA of the Islamic Republic”

[Kian Tajbakhsh @k_tajbakhsh]

If @EliLake’s account is accurate, Angela Davis’s selective solidarity—and the hypocrisy beneath it—reminded me immediately of my own experience in American academia.

When I returned to the United States in 2016 after years as a political prisoner in Iran—the longest-held American citizen there, including nearly a year in solitary confinement in Evin Prison under the IRGC, for peacefully promoting human rights, democracy, and an open society—I ended up at a prestigious Ivy League university, where I was unfortunate to find myself among a cluster of faculty concentrated largely in the humanities, Middle East studies, and parts of the softer social sciences. (NOTE: I am NOT generalizing about every faculty member or department across the university.)

What struck me most was not simply that I disagreed with their politics, though I often did. Nor was it only how little many of them seemed to understand about the real political world beyond the sloganeering vocabulary of their own disciplines.

I can tolerate ideological disagreement. I can even tolerate foolishness. And there was plenty of it: puerile ideas about socialism, romantic fantasies about revolutionary politics, and astonishing—sometimes dangerous—ignorance about organizations such as Hamas.

What I found much harder to tolerate was the hypocrisy.

These were people who spoke endlessly about oppression, colonialism, indigenous land, migrants, racial injustice, capitalism, the “Global South,” and the suffering of distant peoples. But their solidarity was highly selective. It was most intense when directed toward people they would never have to know personally: migrants thousands of miles away at the southern border, or faceless “dark” populations somewhere in the so-called Global South, itself an increasingly useless abstraction.

The farther away the victims, the easier the solidarity. The closer the sacrifice came to home, the thinner it became.

I remember the reaction when a migrant shelter housing project was proposed inside the Brooklyn progressive bubble in Clinton Hill. Middle-class radicals, some living in multimillion-dollar brownstones, suddenly discovered the politics of “not in my backyard.” The housing crisis was urgent until the housing was to be built near them.

And then there was me.

An actual political prisoner from Iran—one of the few scholars in American academia with both academic expertise and firsthand experience of imprisonment by the Islamic Republic—interested almost no one. No one wanted to hear my story. Few showed much curiosity about Iranian political prisoners more broadly. And once it became clear that I would not vilify Israel, denounce the United States, or describe every Western institution as part of a neocolonial, white-supremacist, capitalist conspiracy, I was quietly marginalized.

That was the overriding impression left on me: hypocrisy.

An actual housing shortage mattered until someone proposed building housing next door. An actual political prisoner mattered only if he repeated the approved slogans.

I did not.

[Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih]

Wow, Iran's state TV accidentally told the truth.

A pro-regime woman admitted on their own broadcast, the second Khamenei died, Iranians ran into the streets to celebrate. Not mourn. Celebrate.

That's why they cut the internet.
That's why they staged a 5-day fake funeral. The regime needed to control the narrative.

And they wonder why they hate me. I found the mainstream media that finally put a microphone in front of Iranians who don't cry for butchers.

[Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih]

Shocking ….After I went on CBS and exposed Khamenei's staged funeral, I received over 50,000 comments from the Islamic Republic's cyber army on my instagram.

I checked their profiles. These are not bots. These are real people threatening to kidnap me, butcher me, and paying a bounty for anyone who chops my head off.

These are the supporters of the “Supreme Leader” of the Islamic Republic who cry for the death of a dictator.

And what is the reason of their anger?

This regime spends millions on lobbyists to normalize the Islamic Republic in Western media. When one woman goes on mainstream media, right after their leader's death and speaks the truth, and echoes the voices of millions inside Iran, they lose their minds.

Because the truth terrifies them.

This is also how it works: first they harass you online. Then they send killers to your door. They did it to Iranian journalist Rohullh Zam. First aid threaten him on line, even some of the opposition join the Online attack against him, then they kidnapped him from France to Iran, then they hanged him.

The Islamic CBS Republic is proud of it’s act of terrorism and publicly talk about kidnapping and killing their opponents.

Yes, the Islamic Republic doesn't care if you're left or right. Republican or Democrat. They want to silence us all.

My answer to all the new death threats:

I will not bow to my killers.
I will not bow to my oppressors.
I will keep echoing the voice of millions of Iranians, against this terrorist regime, for as long as I breathe.
✌️💪

[Marc St-Cyr ⚜️🎗️🕊️ @montreal110]

Ce n’était pas seulement un enterrement. C’était un rassemblement d’alliés autoritaires et de mandataires terroristes célébrant l’un des dictateurs les plus brutaux du monde. Les estimations indépendantes évaluent le coût à environ 800 millions de dollars, bien que le régime

[Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih]

بعد از حضورم در CBS و افشای نمایش حکومتیِ مراسم تشییع خامنه‌ای، بیش از ۵۰ هزار کامنت از سوی ارتش سایبری جمهوری اسلامی زیر پست اینستاگرامم سرازیر شد.
دوباره تهدید به آدم‌ربایی با گونی، دوباره تهدید به تکه تکه کردن و‌ کشتن….
این‌ها همان عزاداران «رهبر» جمهوری اسلامی‌اند.

چرا این‌قدر عصبانی‌اند؟

چون جمهوری اسلامی میلیون‌ها دلار خرج لابی‌گری و تبلیغات می‌کند تا چهره‌ای عادی از خودش در رسانه‌های غربی بسازد. اما وقتی یک نفر در یکی از بزرگ‌ترین شبکه‌های خبری آمریکا حقیقت را می‌گوید و صدای میلیون‌ها ایرانیِ بی‌صدا که از داغدار کشته شدن خامنه‌ای نیستند، شنیده می‌شود، تمام این پروژه فرو می‌ریزد.

[Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih]

Shocking ….After I went on CBS and exposed Khamenei's staged funeral, I received over 50,000 comments from the Islamic Republic's cyber army on my instagram.

I checked their profiles. These are not bots. These are real people threatening to kidnap me, butcher me, and paying a bounty for anyone who chops my head off.

These are the supporters of the “Supreme Leader” of the Islamic Republic who cry for the death of a dictator.

And what is the reason of their anger?

This regime spends millions on lobbyists to normalize the Islamic Republic in Western media. When one woman goes on mainstream media, right after their leader's death and speaks the truth, and echoes the voices of millions inside Iran, they lose their minds.

Because the truth terrifies them.

This is also how it works: first they harass you online. Then they send killers to your door. They did it to Iranian journalist Rohullh Zam. First aid threaten him on line, even some of the opposition join the Online attack against him, then they kidnapped him from France to Iran, then they hanged him.

The Islamic CBS Republic is proud of it’s act of terrorism and publicly talk about kidnapping and killing their opponents.

Yes, the Islamic Republic doesn't care if you're left or right. Republican or Democrat. They want to silence us all.

My answer to all the new death threats:

I will not bow to my killers.
I will not bow to my oppressors.
I will keep echoing the voice of millions of Iranians, against this terrorist regime, for as long as I breathe.
✌️💪

[Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih]

This is my Instagram page

https://t.co/AIASp4ytWy

[Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih]

Shocking ….After I went on CBS and exposed Khamenei's staged funeral, I received over 50,000 comments from the Islamic Republic's cyber army on my instagram.

I checked their profiles. These are not bots. These are real people threatening to kidnap me, butcher me, and paying a bounty for anyone who chops my head off.

These are the supporters of the “Supreme Leader” of the Islamic Republic who cry for the death of a dictator.

And what is the reason of their anger?

This regime spends millions on lobbyists to normalize the Islamic Republic in Western media. When one woman goes on mainstream media, right after their leader's death and speaks the truth, and echoes the voices of millions inside Iran, they lose their minds.

Because the truth terrifies them.

This is also how it works: first they harass you online. Then they send killers to your door. They did it to Iranian journalist Rohullh Zam. First aid threaten him on line, even some of the opposition join the Online attack against him, then they kidnapped him from France to Iran, then they hanged him.

The Islamic CBS Republic is proud of it’s act of terrorism and publicly talk about kidnapping and killing their opponents.

Yes, the Islamic Republic doesn't care if you're left or right. Republican or Democrat. They want to silence us all.

My answer to all the new death threats:

I will not bow to my killers.
I will not bow to my oppressors.
I will keep echoing the voice of millions of Iranians, against this terrorist regime, for as long as I breathe.
✌️💪

[The Free Press @TheFP]

For decades, Tehran has used mass spectacles to project strength. Khamenei’s funeral reveals how much of that strength is actually performance, writes Masih Alinejad. https://t.co/1R9hA6sVTo

[Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih]

This wasn’t just a funeral. It was a gathering of authoritarian allies and terrorist proxies celebrating one of the world’s most brutal dictators.

Independent estimates place the cost at around $800 million, although the regime has never released an official accounting.
My interview with @CBSNews , all you need to know about Khamenei’s funeral and what ordinary people of Iran feel about his death.

[Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih]

No sheep cries for its own butcher.
Five days of staged grief. Thousands bused in to cry on
I call it what it is: a dictatorship's final performance. A terrorist summit.
All you need to know about Khamenei’s funeral in my new piece in @TheFP

https://t.co/Ts7Qylkwq9

[Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih]

هیچ گوسفندی برای قصاب خودش گریه نمی‌کند.
مقاله‌ام در مورد یک هفته عزا برای مردی که سالها زنان و مردان را زندانی، شکنجه و اعدام کرد. فرمان قتل‌عام داد، دوربین‌ها آماده. اتوبوس‌ها پر از گریه‌کنندگان اجاره‌ای.
پشت پرده‌ی این نمایش را افشا کردم.

https://t.co/Ts7Qylkwq9

[The Free Press @TheFP]

For decades, Tehran has used mass spectacles to project strength. Khamenei’s funeral reveals how much of that strength is actually performance, writes Masih Alinejad. https://t.co/mjSOM36YRa

[Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih]

The world spent five days covering Khamenei's funeral. No one is talking about Azar Yahoo Who is paying a huge price simply for the crime of dancing right after she heard khamenei was killed.

A 39-year-old woman from Mashhad sat in a prison cell for daring to express her true feeling and share it on her social media.

Azar danced the day Khamenei was killed in a U.S. strike. She shared a sticker on social media.

The court charged her with collaboration with the Zionist regime.

She was arrested on March 4, 2025, by IRGC Intelligence. She has now spent 125 days inside Ward 6 of Vakilabad Prison — no verdict, no sentence, no end in sight.

And now it's getting worse.

Since July 5th, prison authorities have cut off all phone calls and family visits, not as a legal consequence, but as a deliberate act of cruelty. Her family cannot hear her voice. She cannot hear theirs. The silence is the punishment.

The regime that staged five days of televised mourning for a dictator gave this woman 125 days of a prison cell for one moment of joy.

That's the story no one is telling.

Please be her voice.

#FreeAzarYahoo

[Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih]

While the world's cameras are fixed on the five-day state funeral of Khamenei, the Islamic Republic is silently killing this 23-year-old girl with a slow death.

Raheleh Moeini, a biomedical engineering graduate of Amirkabir University, had traveled back to Iran from Italy to visit her family. On January 18th, in Saadatabad, Tehran, she was shot by security forces and at that very moment, bleeding and wounded, she was abducted and transferred to Qarchak Prison. Her family spent weeks not knowing where she was. Whether she was alive or dead.

Now Branch Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, has issued its verdict. One year for being on the street where they shot her. One and a half years for having a Twitter account. Two years banned from leaving the country. This regime first put a bullet in her, then put her on trial.

Be the voice of Raheleh Moeini.

#FreeRahelehMoeini

[Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih]

A member of Islamic parliament in Iran, just publicly called for a missile strike on Donald Trump in Turkey.

Hamid Rasaei wrote: "Now that Trump is within our reach attending the NATO summit in Turkey, let's officially and without hesitation target his location with a missile."

This is not a fringe voice, this is a sitting lawmaker.

The Islamic Republic was born in terrorism. The world will soon learn what appeasement of this regime truly costs.

[Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih]

This is how democracies should combat transnational repression.

Thank you, @JoDemocracy, for not just telling the horror story of how I became the target of three Iranian regime kidnapping and assassination plots on U.S. soil, but for treating my case as a legal precedent.

The authors argue that these plots are among the clearest examples of transnational repression and that the successful U.S. prosecutions should become the model for how democracies respond, not the exception.
https://t.co/fXvpPuRuMG

[Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih]

While the world's cameras are fixed on the five-day state funeral of Khamenei, the Islamic Republic is silently killing this 23-year-old girl with a slow death.

Raheleh Moeini, a biomedical engineering graduate of Amirkabir University, had traveled back to Iran from Italy to visit her family. On January 18th, in Saadatabad, Tehran, she was shot by security forces and at that very moment, bleeding and wounded, she was abducted and transferred to Qarchak Prison. Her family spent weeks not knowing where she was. Whether she was alive or dead.

Now Branch Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, has issued its verdict. One year for being on the street where they shot her. One and a half years for having a Twitter account. Two years banned from leaving the country. This regime first put a bullet in her, then put her on trial.

Be the voice of Raheleh Moeini.

#FreeRahelehMoeini

[Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih]

URGENT:
"I reached out to almost every newspaper inside Iran. No one will touch this story."

Zeinab Mousavi known as "Aban" is dying quietly in Vakilabad Prison, and Iran’s regime wants no one to know.

A barista arrested alongside her brother Hassan on February 24, 2025, Zeinab has been charged with moharebeh, "enmity against God", for protesting. The charge carries the death penalty.

Now, her health is collapsing. For several consecutive nights, she has been suffering seizures in her sleep. Her family and supporters are demanding her immediate emergency transfer for medical treatment outside the prison walls. That demand has been ignored.

The silence around her case is not accidental.

Sepideh Qolian, an Iranian activist who was herself just released from prison, tried to break it. She reached out to most major Iranian newspapers to speak about the deteriorating conditions of the December protesters from Mashhad. Not one was willing to publish it.

"I'm at my most helpless," Qolian wrote. "If I speak to foreign media, I'll be arrested again. The conditions of the December prisoners are very bad."

Iran has built a perfect trap: beat them inside, silence those who witness it, and punish anyone who speaks out.

Zeinab Mousavi may be executed for protesting. She may also die waiting for medical care she is being denied.

Her story is being buried in real time. We refuse to let that happen.

#FreeZeinabMousavi

[Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih]

Khamenei's sons are weeping.
His victims' families wept for decades. Nobody arrested them for crying. Unlike what your father did to ours.
Cry harder. It still won't be enough.
However Mojtaba Khamenei who was appointed behind closed doors, is still invisible to the Public.

[Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih]

When the Islamic Republic Threatens to Kill You, Believe Them. I Know From Experience.

Russian state media is now amplifying assassination threats made by IRGC operatives at Khamenei’s funeral:

“Sooner or later, your heads will roll.”

At the funeral, posters in Tehran depicted Donald Trump, Ben Shapiro, Laura Loomer, Peter Thiel, Miriam Adelson, Lindsey Graham, and Mark Dubowitz with red crosshairs on their foreheads.

[Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih]

The new US-Iran MOU: no nukes, no sanctions, totally silent on hanging people in public. Iranian regime read that as a green light and they hang Trump in effigy at Khamenei’s funeral the same week they sign deals with Washington. Same rope they use on protesters.