Last Wednesday and Thursday, a man was caught near the home of Iranian-American feminist journalist Masih Alinejad in Brooklyn, one of New York’s five boroughs. The man was finally arrested at the end of last week by the FBI who discovered in his car an AK-47 rifle and about sixty ammunition, according to a note from the federal police filed with the Manhattan federal court.
In these court documents made public over the weekend, Masih Alinejad is not cited, but the person concerned confirmed on Twitter on Sunday and Monday, with CCTV footage in support, that the man arrested by the new police Yorker “had tried to return to (her) home in New York with a loaded firearm to kill (her)”. “Last year, the FBI stopped the Islamic Republic (of Iran) from kidnapping me. My crime is to give a voice to the voiceless. The United States government must be tough on terrorism,” the feminist activist wrote on social media.
These are the scary scenes capturing a man who tried to enter my house in New York with a loaded gun to kill me.
La… https://t.co/hJKAVjC78s— AlinejadMasih (@Masih Alinejad 🏳️)January 31, 2022
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In August 2021, Time had met her at length in her home in Brooklyn, to discuss this attempted kidnapping.
Lire: Masih Alinejad: ‘I refuse to live in fear’
Writings hostile to the Tehran regime
A month earlier, American justice had indicted four “Iranian intelligence agents”, accused of having prepared the kidnapping of Masih Alinejad in 2018 by trying to force Iranian relatives of the journalist to lure him to a third country, to have her arrested, taken to Iran and imprisoned.
Last summer, as a sign of support, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with this Iranian-American activist, known in particular for her positions against the wearing of the hijab by women in Iran and her hostile statements and writings. to the Tehran regime.
In New York, the American association United Against Nuclear Iran welcomed this new arrest on Monday and warned through its president, former ambassador Mark Wallace, that “Americans will never tolerate elements of a hostile power threaten to carry out attacks on United States soil”.
Iran and the United States have not had diplomatic relations since 1980 following the Islamic Revolution the previous year.
In the 2010s, the timid warming between the two countries, thanks to the international agreement on the Iranian nuclear program concluded in July 2015, had been undermined by the American withdrawal from this text in 2018, under the presidency of Donald Trump. , and by the resumption by Tehran of uranium enrichment.
Negotiations to revive this agreement were relaunched in April 2021 but have been stalled since last March. However, this Monday, Iranian diplomacy said it was “optimistic” about a resumption of these discussions following a draft compromise presented by the European Union and welcomed, also on Monday at the UN, by Antony Blinken .
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