Masih Alinejad

MH: Women and the fight for freedom in Iran…this week on Firing Line. Chants of “death to the dictator” and “woman, life, freedom!” in the massive protests that have spread throughout Iran, Fueled by the death of this 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, arrested for not wearing her hijab properly, then reportedly beaten by the morality police. Now women across Iran are uncovering their hair and burning their hijabs. Masih Alinejad is an exiled Iranian activist and journalist who has been encouraging Iranian women to do this, and stand up to gender apartheid. 

 

Alinejad in Persian: “Women! Life! Freedom!” 

 

Alinejad has received death threats, been the target of kidnapping plots, and lives under FBI protection after an armed man came to her house.

 

Alinejad: I’m not scared of being killed by the regime. 

 

As protesters in Iran face brutal crackdowns, questions mount about what is next in Iran and what the U.S. should be doing, what does Masih Alinejad say now? 

 

‘Firing Line’ with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by: Robert Granieri, Charles R. Schwab, The Fairweather Foundation, Asness Family Foundation, The Rosalind P. Walter Foundation, Damon Button, Pritzker Military Foundation on behalf of the Pritzker Military

 

HOOVER Masih Alinejad, welcome to Firing Line. 

ALINEJAD Thank you so much. 

HOOVER You’re an Iranian journalist living in New York City. Four weeks ago, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was arrested by the morality police for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly. She died suddenly, while in police custody. What do you know about how Mahsa Amini died? 

ALINEJAD The regime says that ‘we didn’t kill her. We didn’t do anything to her.’ But the family, Mahsa’s family, they put themselves in danger, and they spoke up about how she got killed. Mahsa’s father actually talked to those women who were witnessing while Mahsa was beaten up by hijab police. And to us, millions of Iranians, it’s obvious that the police killed her. 

HOOVER Amini’s death has sparked waves of protests across Iran, now in as many as 80 cities across the country. Women have been seen in the streets taking off their hijab, in many cases burning their hijab, cutting their hair, chanting phrases, like, “death to the dictator” and “woman, life, freedom.” What, for you, is the most important takeaway of the last month’s uprising? 

ALINEJAD I mean, to me, this is like a revolution. To see a lot of fearless women, shoulder to shoulder with men, burning the headscarves. Because to us a head scarf, hijab, is not just a small piece of cloth, it’s like a tool to oppress us. And now I see that fearless women are burning the headscarves. It’s a revolution is going on. 

HOOVER I want to ask you about the symbolism of the hijab, because you have been encouraging women across Iran to speak out against the hijab requirement since 2014. You, in fact, have been encouraging them to take videos of themselves without their hijab and to send them to you, so that you can post them on your own social media channels. You have millions of followers on social media, over 8 million on Instagram alone. You say that a headscarf is not just a small piece of cloth and that it is so important, you have compared this uprising with the hijab to the fall of the Berlin Wall. So explain the significance of the hijab. 

ALINEJAD You know, I was just watching that people making sure that your hair looked beautiful in this show. So imagine living in a country that people make sure that your hair is not shown. I mean, this is 21st century. So, that is why when people in the West saying that ‘this is just a small piece of cloth,’ or ‘it is your culture,’ I get furious. Because it’s not. It’s not. Compulsory hijab, it is like the Berlin Wall. And Iranian woman trying to tear this wall down because we want to gain our dignity back, you know? We want to gain our visibility back. We want to be our true self.

HOOVER You left Iran in 2009 when you were 32 years old. But you describe growing up in Iran with a brother, who you got to see go out to the stadium to watch games, to ride a bicycle, playing with his friends, singing. And you were stuck wearing hijab from the age seven on. Describe what life is like for women in Iran. 

ALINEJAD Like a hell. I mean, seriously. Imagine you’re just 7-year-old girl, then you want to go to school. If you don’t cover your hair, you won’t be able to get an education. You won’t be able to get a job. You won’t be able to exist, to live. More than 60 percent of University in Iran being occupied by women. But where are these women? Women are not allowed to be judge. Women are not allowed to be ministers. And before the revolution, before the revolution, we had so many judges. We had so many female singers. We were able to go to stadium, to participate in any kind of sports. But the Islamic revolution became a revolution against women. And this is the reality. I mean, when you are a woman, you don’t have a normal life. You’re not a free woman. If you want to be a free woman in Iran, you have to break the law every day. Me and you, both, we sit like this in Iran–

HOOVER We couldn’t do this interview. 

ALINEJAD No. In the eyes of the government, we’re like master criminals. Leg. Hair. Definitely, we would get lashes, both of us. Just think about it. 

HOOVER There’s a brutal crackdown; tear gas, clubs, ammunition is being fired into crowds. According to some reports, 185 people have died in the protests– 

ALINEJAD More than this.

HOOVER -but these are estimates. There are also reports of journalists being arrested, schoolchildren being detained on school premises. What are you hearing from your contacts on the ground? 

ALINEJAD First of all, I have to say that the numbers are much more than this. Because the Iranian regime cut off the Internet to prevent the rest of the world to see the real brutality, to see the real crackdown on how many people got killed. I see that schoolgirls, teenagers, making video before going to protest. One of them, Hadis Najafi, only 20 year old, she filmed herself proudly saying that ‘I’m going to the demonstration. And a day when we have the regime change, I am going to be proud of myself because I was part of the revolution.’ She got killed. There’s another girl who burned headscarf, Nika Shakarami, only 16 year old, bravely leading the movement by burning her hijab. She got killed. And what the Iranian regime did? Brought her family on TV to do forced confession and saying that, ‘no, our daughters has just committed suicide.’ This is what I see. But you know what? You had Margaret Atwood in your show. She wrote a book, The Handmaid’s Tale. And there’s a series about it in the West, and maybe people just eat their popcorn and watch it as an entertainment. But this is the reality in Iran, in Afghanistan. Women are being treated like what you see in The Handmaid’s Tale. Women get raped in the name of child marriage. Women get killed. Teenagers are getting killed. So that breaks my heart. 

HOOVER There are those who will say Iranian women, some of them, choose hijab. 

ALINEJAD From the age of seven? You choose to wear a hijab? Yeah, my mom wears it, traditionally. But I strongly believe that hijab cannot be a choice until the day that all women around the world can choose to wear it or not. 

HOOVER What kind of danger are the women and girls who are taking videos and sending them to you, what kind of danger are they putting themselves in? 

ALINEJAD The Iranian regime actually made a law saying that if anyone send videos to Masih Alinejad will be charged up to 10 years prison. Ten years prison, just sending video to me. 

HOOVER Why are they so afraid of you? 

ALINEJAD I mean, I have to say that they are not afraid of me. They are afraid of millions of brave women inside Iran who dare to challenge the regime, and send the videos to me, as well. Now they are publishing the videos on their own social media. So the Iranian regime is scared of its own women. Actually, there is three pillars for Islamic Republic: death to America, death to Israel, hijab. But now, the biggest enemy of the Islamic Republic is not America and Israel. It’s women inside Iraq. You know why? Because they are fed up. They are fed up by the regime telling them what kind of lifestyle to follow. They are fed up by seeing that the regime, the same officials who are killing them, they send their children here in America, to have their luxury life here. All the ayatollahs, they send their relatives and children here. They have freedom. They have fancy life here. So the Iranian young generation, they risk their lives because they are tired of seeing this hypocrisy.  

HOOVER You are a journalist in Tehran, and you left in 2009 essentially because the government told you to either stop making trouble or leave. So you left. Since then your sister has denounced you on state TV, the Iranian government has attempted to kidnap you on multiple occasions, your brother has been imprisoned for not cooperating with a kidnapping plot. In July, a man was arrested outside of your home in New York City with an AK-47 style weapon, loaded, in the back of his car. It sounds to me like Iran’s theocratic leaders are scared of you. 

ALINEJAD You know what? I don’t have any weapon. I don’t have any guns and bullets. But they are scared of my words. They’re scared of my voice. Yeah, they scared off my social media, as you mentioned, that I have like more than 10 million followers. I’m not an actress. I’m not a model. I’m just giving voice to voiceless people. And that scares the regime. They’re scared of us because they know that we are the most powerful women in the world. Iranian women are fearless, and mullahs are scared of fearless women. 

HOOVER How this has impacted your life is pretty severe. I mean-

ALINEJAD Upside down.

HOOVER You haven’t seen your mother in 13 years. You get death threats daily. You are currently living in an FBI safe house. Talk to me about the toll it’s taking on you, personally. 

ALINEJAD Okay. My life is upside down, you know? It’s not easy for me, because I’m a village girl. I used to go to my mom every weekend and hug her. I, even in Brooklyn, I actually plant a tree after my mother name, because I wanted to hug my mom. I wanted to talk to my mother. Now I have to be away even from my garden because– because the government actually tried to kill me in Brooklyn and I have to live in safe house. My life is miserable, but every day when I wake up, I tell myself that, ‘Masih, the regime did everything to make you feel miserable. And you have two options: to cry every day and feel miserable or make your oppressors feel miserable.’ I choose the second one. 

HOOVER This is not the first wave of protests in Iran. In 2009, there were fraudulent elections and an uprising. There were protests also in 2017 and 2019 over the economy. Are these protests different? 

ALINEJAD Totally different. 

HOOVER How? 

ALINEJAD This time, people know that they will end the regime. People have hope. You know, previous protests, you never see that women burning headscarves. This is the first time that you see well-known athletes around the world, well-known actresses around the world showing solidarity. I mean, the unity among Iranians and non-Iranians– So I get goosebumps when I see all these solidarity and unity. It gives me hope that this time is different. The mullahs know that as well, that compulsory hijab is the Achilles heel of the regime. 

HOOVER Why are you so sure the regime will lose?

ALINEJAD Because the Iranian regime know that themselves. And that is why, actually, they’re trying to cut off the Internet and take the hope away from Iranian people. The young generation, as I told you, the TikTok generation, they are sacrificing their lives to bring this regime down. Of course I have hope. I mean, I lost everything in my life, everything, but not hope, because this is what the Iranian government want to take it away from us. 

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION

HOOVER You’ve been pretty critical of the Biden administration and their lack of support for the protests. Of course, they say they do support the protesters because they support human rights advances, but they’re not calling for regime change. You’ve even spoken with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and you told him that the US government should stop negotiating the nuclear deal with Iran and connect with // opposition leaders for information about what it’s really like on the ground. He told you that the Biden administration was going to maintain the course, to stay on course, with their current policy. What was your reaction? 

ALINEJAD Angry. You know what, because you cannot be pro-democracy, you cannot say that we are for women’s rights. You cannot say, we care about freedom of expression, but at the same time, send billions of dollars to autocracy, to dictators. This nuclear deal is going to empower Revolutionary Guards, the killers, the murderers. And that is why I’m angry with the U.S. government. But, hey, I didn’t ask them for regime change. I didn’t ask them to save the Iranians. I just asked the U.S. government, stop saving the Iranian regime. 

HOOVER So you’re persuaded that the Biden administration wants a nuclear deal with Iran more– 

ALINEJAD This is what Secretary Blinken told me and Jake Sullivan in our meeting. They actually said that. 

HOOVER They told you, exactly what? 

ALINEJAD That we have to stick with our policy to get a deal because we want an Iran without nuclear bomb. But you know what I told them? I said that a democratic Iran is going to make the whole world more safe. So, when you hear the voice of Iranian who actually want to get rid of the Islamic Republic, this is the same goal. 

HOOVER So that was Secretary of State Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, told you that it was more important to get a nuclear deal with Iran than it was to support the protests and the uprising 

ALINEJAD Correct. This is what Obama’s administration did as well in 2009. 

HOOVER Well, I want to ask you about the Iran deal, because last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, reported that Iran has enough highly enriched uranium to make a bomb, and it would only take a few weeks to enrich it to be weapons grade. And then once it has the uranium, of course, the State Department estimates that it could take Iran about a year to weaponize it. So take on the argument that the Biden administration is making, of course, that time is of the essence and then the need to negotiate with the Iranian government in order to stop a bomb from being made is imperative. 

ALINEJAD Look, but Islamic Republic is a dishonest broker. They cheat. They lie. They understand only one language. Language of pressure. That’s the way that you negotiate with a regime who take hostages, who kill people, who murder innocent teenagers. That’s why me and millions of Iranians are angry. Even you want to talk to Iranian about nuclear deal, then you have to mention about human rights abuses as well. No? 

HOOVER One of the questions is, if the regime were to fall, who would be in charge? What would come next in Iranian leadership? And you say Iranians, of course, deserve a secular, democratic country and not a religious dictatorship. Some protesters have called for the return of the Pahlavi family. That is the descendants of the late Shah, who went into exile in 1979. There is also an opposition group who currently wants to overthrow the Iranian government, the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, the MEK. They previously had terrorist designation by the United States who could lead Iran in the absence of the current government?

ALINEJAD Look, the Iranians should make a decision for the future of Iran. Now, we all want to get rid of the Islamic Republic. But believe me, there are many intellectuals, educated people inside the country, outside the country. They can run Iran better than these backward mullahs.

HOOVER Let me ask you a question about the role the United States could be playing. Would it be helpful if the White House invited a group of dissidents like yourself and others in order to facilitate communication for what could become the next generation of Iranian leadership? 

ALINEJAD That’s what I said to Jake Sullivan. I said instead of meeting with the murderers and butchers, you better meet with some of the well-known opposition leaders inside Iran, outside Iran, and listen what they want. Listen to what Iranian people want. If you ignore Iranians, believe me, America will face all those terrorist, Islamic terrorists, on U.S. soil. So I gave him a list of the helps that they can do. 

HOOVER What else was on the list? 

ALINEJAD The relatives, the children of the ayatollahs are here in America. They have to do an investigation about them. Look, the way that the Western democratic countries actually boycott Putin and Putin’s relatives should be address about Iranian regime. What is different? 

HOOVER What about providing Internet access to Iran? Is the U.S. doing enough to facilitate the free flow of information in Iran? 

ALINEJAD Not yet. That’s why I say that we don’t need empty words. You know, Obama’s administration did a huge mistake by abandoning Iranians in the street. And now Hillary Clinton said that “regret.” Ben Rhodes said “regret.” Obama himself, “regret.” But now they’re doing the same mistake. They’re doing the same mistake because all people around Jake Sullivan or President Biden are the same people giving wrong advice to President Obama. 

HOOVER To be fair, the U.S. has levied three rounds of sanctions since the protests began. They include sanctions against the morality police, on oil sales and on various Iranian officials who the U.S. says have played a role in the crackdown and internet outages. Is this not enough? 

ALINEJAD It’s not. This is not enough. What I want is clear. A revolution is taking place in Iran. Teenagers getting killed. Schoolgirls getting killed. Recognize this revolution. If not, your sanctions won’t help us. Your empty words won’t help us. You’re cutting hair won’t help us. Just cut the ties with the murderers. That’s the only way that you can hear the voice of Iranian people. 

HOOVER In December of 1979, on the original Firing Line program that was hosted by William Buckley Jr and his, his guest was former Congressman Allard Lowenstein. They were discussing how the United States is inconsistent in its application of human rights.

LOWENSTEIN: I would like to say that I think that there is inherent in the approach to human rights of most of the political leaders of this country an opportunism which shatters the possibility of genuine progress across the board by people agreeing on the kind of formulation that we all know is right, namely, that human rights is a concern regardless of where it occurs, where the violations occur, that at no point should we forget that a government which is willfully repressive of its own people ought to be the object of concern on the part of people everywhere else.

HOOVER The Biden administration came into power arguing that they would advance global human rights, and especially women’s rights. So why is the plight of Iranian women not getting more support? 

ALINEJAD I think that the Biden administration are lost when it comes to women’s rights and human rights in Iran. Because clearly they cannot see this as a bipartisan issue. Not only– like, many Democrats here when it comes to women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, they are loud. But when it comes to Iran, they’re hesitating to touch the issue. We have a lot of congresswomen. Oh, my God. I remember the day when I was watching them wearing white. I was like, wow, that’s beautiful. But they’re all quiet when it comes to women’s rights in Iran. 

HOOVER Why? 

ALINEJAD Because of political agenda. You know, they call themselves feminists. I want to meet with Nancy Pelosi. I want to meet with all the congresswomen. That how come you call yourself feminist. Honestly, it just breaks my heart that why? Your political agenda is more important than your dignity, your feminism ideals?

HOOVER You say that some of the blame for the suffering of women in Iran rests with Western female politicians who wear the hijab when they travel to countries like Iran and Afghanistan. They believe that doing so demonstrates respect for Islamic culture. What do they not understand? 

ALINEJAD They don’t even understand that, first of all, compulsion cannot be part of a nation’s culture. It’s a barbaric law.

HOOVER I want to ask you one more question about your work as a journalist because you’re able to do work for Voice of America, which is, of course, a U.S. government funded network with the mission to broadcast journalism to the Iranian people so that they can get the news and understand what’s actually happening. Does the fact that you’re able to work in this capacity demonstrate a degree of support? 

ALINEJAD Look, I’m very pleased to be a freelancer for Voice of America. I mean, that’s why I came here, because I wanted to have freedom of expression. And I’m really pleased to have this opportunity to echo the voice of Iranians. 

HOOVER But what you’re saying is it’s not enough?

ALINEJAD It’s not enough because people who send videos, the Voice of America, they’re getting killed. It’s not just, okay, just air their videos. No. Hear their voice as well. 

HOOVER You have said that you plan to return to Iran someday when there is a new regime. What gives you hope that that day will come? 

ALINEJAD The mothers whose children got killed in Iran protest, they’re giving me hope. They ignore the threats. They go to the same street. And they say that, ‘yes, you killed my son, my daughter here. Now this is me. I’m bringing down your regime.’ These are my heroes. I mean, the regime did everything to break me, to take the hope away from me and millions of other people inside Iraq. They have failed. People believe that they’re going to have a country where all these mullahs, the religious dictatorship, are going to be gone. And I’m going to invite you that day to Iran. 

HOOVER Masih Alinejad, I will be delighted to join you. Thank you for being here on Firing Line. 

ALINEJAD Thank you so much for having me.