“I’m a lonely soldier now,”WaxWord hears her tell WaxWord in two weeks from her third safe home
“This is f—ed up,”She said it bluntly. On Wednesday, she was going to a newspaper to interview a reporter when the FBI interrupted her and said she must immediately move to a safe house. “because the threat level is high.”
Alinejad, an American who was raised in Iran and is now a feminist writer. She has led a movement that allows Iranian women to choose to expose their hair and claim basic rights. On Instagram and Twitter, she has millions of followers. She posts videos of herself and Iranian women showing off their hairs and other protest actions.
Alinejad is a constant problem for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Lately she has enraged the government by going a step beyond women’s rights and questioning the validity of an Islamic-based government.
She believes that this is why she has been subject to constant threats since late. The FBI informed her a year ago that she was the victim of a kidnapping plot with the aim of taking her out of the United States and into Iran. This plot was stopped, fortunately.
But just three weeks ago, New York police arrested a 23-year-old man waiting in his car outside Alinejad’s home in Brooklyn with a loaded gun. Alinejad was informed by the State Department. They believe the suspect was actually their friend.Iran government. She was forced to move again two times since then.
Last week, days following the Justice Department charged a member of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard The plot to kill former Trump administration national security advisor John Bolton led to Salman Rushdie, an Indian-born novelist, being repeatedly stabbed in the face before he was due to deliver a lecture in Chautauqua (New York). A 24-year-old suspect, Hadi Matar, was arrested at the scene of the crime — which took place three decades after Iran’s supreme leader issued a 1989 fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death for alleged blasphemy against Islam in the author’s novel “The Satanic Verses.”
Rushdie remains hospitalized after being About 10 times stabbedIn the neck, stomach and chest; the agent of the author has stated that the author will likely lose an eye.
These new attacks on American soil represent new threats to freedom and expression. They remind us of the 2018 assassination of Jamal Khashoggi (a Saudi Arabian journalist and dissident) which was confirmed by a U.S intelligence report.
Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America said that the recent cases are an alarming trend. “There is definitely a rising phenomenon of the long arm of authoritarianism, of repressive governments around the world reaching across national boundaries into foreign countries to menace dissidents,”In an interview with WaxWord, she stated these words.
Authoritarian governments do not hesitate to threaten writers. According to PEN.com, there were 277 writers in jail for writing in 2021. “The idea that governments are retaliating against writers for the crime of telling stories, putting forward ideas, publishing books, that’s very real, and it’s a worldwide phenomenon,”She spoke.
Attacks on U.S. soil, however, are something entirely different.
I have written before about the danger of allowing Saudi Arabia to escape any consequences for its involvement in the murder of Kashoggi — which the U.S. government has taken no action to address.
These shocking murder attempts on Rushdie, Alinejad and others are just a few examples of the ripple effects of this act of impunity. Alinejad continues to share her views on social networks despite threats.
Alinejad claimed that the threat she faces is in direct relation to her. “When the United States buries human rights under business — this is the consequence,”She spoke. “The lives of authors and activists are under threat by those who dare to assassinate us and butcher us.”
Nossel believes that Americans could do more to counter the real threat of violence in America. “The idea was always you get to the U.S. and you get to safety — and that’s no longer the case,”She spoke. “The U.S. and governments around the world need to do more to protect exiled and dissident writers. They are suffering highest price for what others do freely – we have to recognize how vulnerable they are.”
Alinejad would be delighted to have the chance to speak on the Chautauqua stage with Rushdie to carry the torch. “I’m a lonely soldier now,”She admitted it. She said, “But, she added, “I have two options: I can be miserable or I can make the mullahs miserable. I prefer the second.”
