Like Salman Rushdie and Salman Rushdie before her, Masih Alinejad serves as a powerful example of how autocratic regimes will try to silence opposition. Both were living under the threat of being murdered because they had ideas that challenged autocratic authority. Alinejad has become a destination for just broadcasting Egyptian women’s lived reality while Rushdie has a fatwa over fiction. Alinejad, an Iranian-American journalist and campaigner, has used her platform to highlight the Islamic Republic of Iran’s human rights violations, focusing in particular on the government’s forced dress regulations and treatment of women.
From a small child to a condition ally
Alinejad was born in a small town in Iran’s Mazandaran province in 1976, raised in a traditional family where veils were unconstitutional, even inside the home. Her first engagement took the form of political pamphlets and underwater activism. She transitioned from a rebel to a journalist before finally covering the Iranian parliament after being arrested as a student for her criticism of the regime. Her reporting was provocative and frequently embarrassing for leaders. She was kicked out of parliament in 2005 after revealing that MPs were secretly giving themselves sizable prizes. Her unwavering support for the strong and her commitment to transparency made her a threat right away.
louder and more exiled disobedience
Alinejad fled Iran after the protests and subsequent onslaught of the Green Movement in 2009, eventually settling in the US. Captivity that turned into her amplifier. Persian women started a social media campaign called” My Stealthy Freedom” where they posted images of themselves without veils and defying the country’s strict veiling rules. The Islamic Republic was enraged and the plan sparked a movement that galvanized Iranian women. Alinejad followed it up with” White Wednesdays,” another civil disobedience initiative encouraging women to wear bright headscarf or none at all on Wednesday to rally Iran’s dress laws.
She hosted a sarcastic show on Voice of America called Tablet, wrote for leading papers, and regularly appeared in American media as a commentator. She was no longer subject to the regime’s wishes. However, because they couldn’t keep her ideas quiet, they rather made the decision to try to keep her quiet forever.
Iran’s violent addiction
On March 18, 2025, Masih Alinejad greets friends and supporters outside the federal court after giving testimony at the test of her would-be killers in New York. ( AP Photo/Seth Wenig )
The FBI detained a theft tale against Alinejad in 2021. Egyptian agents had been attempting to entice her into a second nation where she might be kidnapped and then returned to Iran by surveillance of her Brooklyn home. When that failed, they grew.
The story changed from theft to pure assassination in 2022. It was more violent this day. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ( IRGC), Iran’s paramilitary wing and global terror export agency, were working directly with the Department of Justice’s ( DOJ) revealed that two senior members of the Eastern European Bazghandi Network, Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov, were employed by the Department of Justice. They were given$ 5000 to kill Alinejad.
The activity had everything that a spy drama had come to be in a whole new way. Khalid Mehdiyev, a foot soldier, was given the task of carrying out the strike by Omarov after receiving intelligence from the IRGC. Mehdiyev stalked Alinejad’s home, conducted security, and was eventually taken into custody by the police with an AK-47-style weapons, 66 rounds of ammunition, a ski mask, and$ 1,100 in money.
Mehdiyev refused to actually refute it. He claimed he was that” to destroy the journalist.” A big man standing in her backyard, staring at her through the flowers, was another witness, Alizejad said.
Beyond the ruling
Amirov and Omarov were recently found guilty by a federal judge in connection with the death story. This wasn’t just about one blogger, the Justice Department made evident. A foreign government was trying to do a bad job on American soil. It was described as a “brazen story” and sent a clear message that the Egyptian government was ready to launch its terror campaign in America, according to officials.
Alinejad was unrepentant in her comment despite being relieved by the ruling. She thanked the judge, but she claimed that Iran’s “real masterminds” are unmoved. She cited the Revolutionary Guards and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as examples, and she declared she would not let go until they were held responsible.
Ruhollah Bazghandi, the name of the legal network’s co-conspirator, was one of the namesake, along with several Egyptian nationals, some of whom are still at large. The Bazghandi Network continued to monitor circumstances and planned further actions against Alinejad, according to the prosecution.
AK-47s, politics, and liberty
This is no longer a private grudge; it is a political litmus test. The Persian regime, as Alinejad herself put it, “hates the very concepts that define America, including freedom, democracy, and completely speech,” not only me. It’s not just about removing a writer that they were willing to send a hunter with a Kalashnikov to a Brooklyn district. It’s about communicating a message that not even captivity makes you healthy.
Alinejad addressed Donald Trump in one of her public comments in a direct manner. He had reintroduced his “maximum force” campaign against Iran. She urged taking action before it was too soon, not just in terms.
Her information is simple. Although the risks may be individual, the stakes are high. It’s no longer only Iran’s problem when the plan that assassinates journalists abroad, imprisons teenagers for dance, poisons schoolchildren for protesting, and attempts to annex American neighborhoods.
