Four Iranian agents plan to kidnap journalist in New York, says FBI

The four men had been looking for “june 2020” to remove “an author and journalist who highlighted human rights violations committed by the Iranian government“the US Department of Justice said in a statement.

They had planned “to take their victim by force to Iran, where (his) fate would have been uncertain at best“, said prosecutor Audrey Strauss.

Not named in the press release, feminist activist Masih Alinejad, behind the anti-veiling movement in Iran, said she was the target of this kidnapping project.

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“Thanks to the FBI for foiling the Iranian intelligence plan to kidnap me“She said on Twitter, filming herself in front of a window from which we can see a police car. The latter has been parked in front of her home for two weeks, according to her.

From the United States, where she has now settled, Masih Alinejad criticizes the Iranian regime and its policies, and has received the support of stars such as Meryl Streep, whom she joined on stage at a conference on women’s rights, in 2016.

“In the eyes of the Iranian regime, any woman who fights for her fundamental rights is a criminal“, she said last April in a video message to the Swedish Parliament.

– Other victims targeted –

The agents had looked for a way to transport the journalist out of the United States, one of them inquiring in particular about speedboats proposing “an autonomous marine evacuation“from New York, and a boat trip between New York and Venezuela, a country that maintains”friendly relations with Iran“.

This network, discovered by the FBI, also targeted other victims living in particular “in Canada, United Kingdom and United Arab Emirates“, against which they had tried to deploy the same means of surveillance, according to prosecutors.

The four agents are Alireza Shavaroghi Farahani, Mahmoud Khazein, Kiya Sadeghi and Omid Noori.

A fifth Iranian residing in California, Niloufar Bahadorifar, is suspected of having participated in the financing of this project.

“Every person in the United States must be free from all harassment, threats and physical harm from foreign powers.“said prosecutor Mark Lesko.

Iran is considered one of the most repressive countries for journalists, and exercises control over information. “implacable“according to the NGO Reporters Without Borders, which placed him in 174th place out of 180 in its world press freedom ranking in 2021.

“This crackdown on freedom of information is not limited to the interior of the country“, affirms RSF, which estimates that since 1979, at least 860 journalists have been there”arrested, detained or executed by the authorities”

In January 2016, Tehran traded Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian for seven Iranians detained in the United States.

Correspondent in Iran, Mr. Rezaian was arrested with his wife on July 22, 2014, when Iran had just accepted the relaunch of negotiations on its nuclear program, suspected by the international community of hiding a military component.

His wife was released after two months of detention. Accused of “spying“For the benefit of the United States, he spent 544 days in Evin prison in northern Tehran, where he claimed to have suffered ill-treatment, been deprived of sleep and threatened with beheading.

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Iran holds more than a dozen Westerners – also holders of Iranian passports for the most part – in prison or under house arrest, like the Franco-Iranian researcher of Sciences Po Fariba Adelkhah, imprisoned for two years.