The Long Retributive Arm of Iranian Reprisal

"The [Iranian] campaign incorporates the full spectrum of transnational repression tactics, including assassinations, renditions, detentions, unlawful deportations, Interpol abuse, digital intimidation, spyware, coercion by proxy, and mobility controls."

"These tools have been deployed against Iranians in at least nine countries in Europe, the Middle East, and North America."

"The Iranian campaign is distinguished by the total commitment it receives from the state, the level of violence that it employs, and the sophisticated application of diverse methods against a similarly diverse set of targets."

"The result is intense intimidation of the Iranian diaspora, from which even those who avoid physical consequences ultimately suffer."

"As an Iranian activist told Freedom House, 'They drain you emotionally financially, in every way'." 

"Another recent tactic is renditions, in which Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC], leads operations to kidnap exiles from other countries and forcibly repatriate them."

Report, Freedom House

 

"I am grateful to [the] FBI for foiling the Islamic Republic of Iran's Intelligence Ministry's plot to kidnap me."

"Initially, I naturally felt shocked. Then I got worried -- then I thought about it; we have been scared of the Islamic regime for a lifetime. But now the Islamic regime is scared of me."

"I was in three safe houses, and they were following me. I think I’m living in a movie. I’ve cooperated with the FBI for the last eight months."

"I have 5 million followers on my Instagram... I’m giving a platform to people inside, challenging the compulsory hijab, and challenging the religious dictatorship. All the years and years they called America the great Satan, the biggest enemy. But they’re scared of their own people. That’s why they sent officers from the intelligence service to Brooklyn to kidnap me."

"My heart was broken following the news of his execution [Ruhollah Zam, a dissident journalist living in France], and I was like, ‘Wow, they’re trying to exactly do the same to me.’ It’s scary but it gives me hope. I give voice to the voiceless people inside Iran."

Masih Alinejad, U.S.-Iranian journalist, activist and author

Masih Alinejad (Gardiner Anderson/for New York Daily News)

"[The incident sounds like] some far-fetched movie plot."

"We allege a group backed by the Iranian government conspired to kidnap a U.S.based journalist here on our soil and forcibly return her to Iran."

"Not on our watch."

William Sweeney, head, New York FBI office

Four Iranian intelligence officials between 2020 and 2021 used the services of private investigators in surveillance, including the photographing and video recording of journalist Masih Alinejad along with her household members, accumulating several days' worth of surveillance and a live high-definition video feed installed at Alinejad's home, according to an indictment filed in New York, after a plan to abduct expatriate Iranians and return them to Iran was interrupted by an FBI investigation.

That investigation served to highlight a covert program organized by the Islamic Republic of Iran to deal with Iranians living outside the country who are critical of the regime, subjecting them to harassment meant to intimidate dissidents living in countries abroad. Freedom House, an organization advocating for human and political rights, published a report detailing the Iranian methodology and its reach.

In the wake of U.S. authorities revealing a kidnapping plot, three Canadians have been revealed as targets of the Iranian regime. The investigation resulted in the charging by U.S. prosecutors of four Iranian intelligence officials for plotting to lure the Canadians to Iran, as well as a New York journalist and an individual living in the United Kingdom. The four intelligence officers have been accused by the FBI of surveillance on the targets for the purpose of kidnapping them to smuggle them out of the country.

"Thanks to the FBI's exposure of their alleged scheme, these defendants have failed to silence criticism by forcible abduction", stated U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss, Southern District of New York. One of the Iranians has been arrested and is in custody, the other Iranian intelligence officers are back in Iran, being sought as fugitives from justice. 

Part of the plot was a scenario involving evacuating the kidnapped Iranians from New York city to Venezuela via a military-style speedboat. It is highly likely that the three Iranian-Canadians knew full well the danger they were in, targeted by the Iranian government for reprisal for their outspoken criticism of the Islamic Republic. One, in fact is himself a former Iranian head of intelligence who stands accused by the regime of having embezzled state funds. The man accuses the regime of sending a team of hit-men to silence him.

Some previous attacks saw a refugee living in the Netherlands assassinated outside his home in 2015, after living outside Iran for decades. A bomb plot against a gathering of the National Council of Resistance of Iran in France was disrupted by Belgian authorities in 2018. That same year Danish intelligence officials disrupted an assassination attempt organized by the Republic of Iran against the head of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz.

"As alleged, four of the defendants monitored and planned to kidnap a U.S. citizen of Iranian origin who has been critical of the regime’s autocracy, and to forcibly take their intended victim to Iran, where the victim’s fate would have been uncertain at best.  Among this country’s most cherished freedoms is the right to speak one’s mind without fear of government reprisal.  A U.S. citizen living in the United States must be able to advocate for human rights without being targeted by foreign intelligence operatives.  Thanks to the FBI’s exposure of their alleged scheme, these defendants have failed to silence criticism by forcible abduction."

U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss

Four Iranians, one an intelligence officer, have been charged by the US justice department of conspiring to kidnap a New York journalist. Photograph: Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images