LONDON: An Iranian-American journalist who was the target of an elaborate kidnapping plot by the Iranian regime has said she refuses to be silenced and will carry on her work.
Tehran had planned to kidnap Masih Alinejad, an outspoken critic of the regime, using a speedboat, but the plot was revealed and foiled earlier this month.
Four Iranians have been charged with conspiring to kidnap the Brooklyn-based journalist. An American Iranian has been charged with providing funds for the plot.
The regime “is that close to me, even here in Brooklyn,” she said told CBS News. “This is the nature of the Islamic Republic, kidnapping dissidents and executing them.”
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Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad said Wednesday she was shocked by an Iranian plot to kidnap her from her New York home, as Tehran stiffly denied the allegations contained in a US Justice Department indictment. More here.
According to an indictment by prosecutors, four Iranian agents hired a New York-based private investigator to track Alinejad, 44, and her family, and the plotters had considered abducting her in a speedboat and taking her to Venezuela, an ally of Tehran.
Asked if she will continue writing, Alinejad said: “Oh yeah, I am not going to give up.” She added that the plot against her proves that her words threaten the regime.
“The government in Iran is scared of me,” she said. “It gives me hope that the government is scared of the voice of people, because I’m the voice of people.”
According to prosecutors, the plan to snatch Alinejad was part of a wider conspiracy to lure individuals in Canada, the UK and the UAE to Iran.
The speedboat plot was hatched after attempts to lure Alinejad to a third country in the Middle East had failed.
US President Joe Biden’s spokesperson Jen Psaki said: “We categorically condemn Iran’s dangerous and despicable reported plot to kidnap a US citizen on US soil.” A regime spokesperson called the accusations “baseless and ridiculous.”
Tehran has not yet succeeded in kidnapping dissidents from the US and Europe, but its efforts closer to home have been more fruitful.
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In 2019, Ruhollah Zam, a writer and dissident who fled the country in 2011, was lured from his home in France to Iraq, where he was arrested by Iraqi police and handed over to Iranian agents. He faced a sham trial in Iran and was put to death in December 2020.
American-Iranian dissident Jamshid Sharmahd, who acted as a spokesperson for a dissident organization based in the US, was tricked into visiting Dubai, from where he was kidnapped by Iranian agents.
He remains in jail in Iran, and following what Amnesty International called a “grossly unfair trial,” he is now in danger of being executed.
His son Shayan Sharmahd told the Associated Press: “We’re seeking support from any democratic country, any free country. You can’t just pick someone up in a third country and drag them into your country.”
