The arrest and persecution of women in Iran under the Islamic regime for failure to cover their hair or for protesting the morality police, is a subject often ignored by U.S. networks – perhaps, one suspects, because of misguided leftist concerns about encouraging so-called Islamophobia.
But the recent conviction of two Russia mobsters in the attempted assassination of outspoken Iranian-American feminist Masih Alinejad, who escaped persecution in Iran and is now an American citizen, drew the attention of PBS News Weekend, which aired an interview with Alinejad on Sunday evening. A shame PBS had to inject the liberal media’s fight with Trump into the discussion.
PBS News White House reporter Lisa Desjardins, pulling substitute host duty on the Sunday evening show, set the table.
Lisa Desjardins: ….Just this month, two men with ties to the Russian mob were convicted in a plot to kill an Iranian-American journalist and women`s rights activist living in New York. Her name is Masih Alinejad. As the court heard her attempted murder in 2022 was orchestrated by the Iranian government, part of more than a decade of violent plots targeting its critics abroad. I spoke with her about how she sees these times in Iran and in the U.S. and began by asking her reaction to the guilty verdict for her would-be assassins.
Alinejad laid out years of targeting of dissidents by the Islamic Republic of Iran, including several previous attempts to kidnap Alinejad herself. Desjardins asked her about "The state for women right now under the Iranian regime and how you think that could change, or if it could," and Alinejad talked about her fight against compulsory veiling of the head.
But when Desjardins tried to bait her into responding to current events in America, the PBS journalist may not have gotten the answer she was looking for, with feminist activist Alinejad providing instead some global perspective on the importance of free speech and airing opposing views, both in Iran and the United States.
DESJARDINS: You are a journalist. You are also an American citizen. President Trump has taken some actions against the media in this country. He says the media is biased against him. I wonder how you see what’s going on in this country with the media right now.
ALINEJAD: To be honest, it breaks my heart when I walk in the street, even people tell me that, Masih, we support you, don't go to Fox News. Some of them stop me and they say, Masih, we support you, but don’t go to CNN. So, and I’m like, oh my God, I’m coming from dictatorship country, having Fox News and CNN and MSNBC, PBS. It’s just our dream, because we have only one state-controlled TV. We have only one -- the cleric, the big guy making decision about everything, about my body, about nuclear, about our lifestyle, about everything. So that’s why I want to dedicate my life to not only give voice to my people, to get rid of dictatorship, but to protect America, to protect freedom of speech from this mindset, saying that, let’s cancel this, let’s cancel that. Let’s work together and love America and protect America.
Sounds far more sensible than the mindset of your typical American-born feminist activist.
This Trump-baiting segment was brought to you in part by LetsMakeaPlan.org
A transcript is available, click “Expand.”
PBS News Weekend
3/30/25
7:17:27 p.m. (ET)
LISA DESJARDINS: The U.S. is not immune to foreign assassination attempts. Just this month, two men with ties to the Russian mob were convicted in a plot to kill an Iranian American journalist and women`s rights activist living in New York. Her name is Masih Alinejad.
As the court heard her attempted murder in 2022 was orchestrated by the Iranian government, part of more than a decade of violent plots targeting its critics abroad. I spoke with her about how she sees these times in Iran and in the U.S. and began by asking her reaction to the guilty verdict for her would be assassins.
MASIH ALINEJAD, Iranian-American journalist: To be honest, I felt relieved because three years I have been moving between safe houses. 21 times I didn`t have a normal life. I was screaming, crying, dancing. I was bombarded by different emotions. People were there to kill me, convicted. I am alive. I am alive. I know maybe people don`t get it, but you must be given a Second Life to understand how it feels to face your would be assassins.
LISA DESJARDINS: I don`t want to bring up too much trauma for you, but I think for some Americans, this kind of thing seems far away. But this was at your home in New York that you actually saw this would be assassin. What memory of that day in 2022 stands out to you?
MASIH ALINEJAD: First of all, I really appreciate what you said. You don`t want to bring too much trauma because a lot of time people even don`t get that this is not a news story. This is my life. But at the same time, I want. If this happened to me today, it might happen to you in America. In Brooklyn, in front of my sunflowers garden, my beautiful garden where I used to feed the whole neighborhood with my tomato, cucumbers, basil. The guy was there, gigantic guy. I stared into his eyes, but I thought, he`s just taking picture of my beautiful garden. I thought, he`s admiring my garden. But he was not.
LISA DESJARDINS: He`s there to kill you.
MASIH ALINEJAD: He said that in a public court, that I was there to kill the journalist.
LISA DESJARDINS: Now, knowing what you do, and we`ve seen other reporting that Iran, for example, has worked with criminal gangs in this country to try and target those who oppose it. How broad do you think Iran`s reaches around the world?
MASIH ALINEJAD: Listen, it`s not just me. There are more than 500 people who were the target of the Islamic Republic in four decades beyond their own borders. And in this case, they actually hired Russian mobsters. They were trying to actually kidnap me first because, as you know, this is not the first assassination plot. I survived three.
The first plot, they were trying to kidnap me to take me to Venezuela. So you see, Venezuela, Russia. So these dictators are helping each other to get rid of any of, you know, their critics beyond their own borders.
This is called transnational repression. And that`s why I think it is very important for Americans to understand what happens in dictatorship is not going to stay there. I know what happened in Vegas stays in Vegas, but what happened in the terrorist countries, like, you know, Iran, Russia, they can infect the rest of the world.
LISA DESJARDINS: You remain an activist and a target. Can you help us understand what you know about the. The state for women right now under the Iranian regime and how you think that could change or if it could.
MASIH ALINEJAD: They are my hero. The reason actually I`m not giving up my fight are because of these women. They`re saying to the ayatollahs, we are here unveiled. Where are you? So that actually shows you that women in Iran, they`re not just fighting against, like, compulsory veiling or a small piece of cloth. They want to have secular democracy. You know, in my court, there was a woman who was deliberately blinded by the Revolutionary Guards during the uprising.
LISA DESJARDINS: Blinded?
MASIH ALINEJAD: Blinded, yeah. She lost her eye because they shoot her in her eye and then she was blinded. But she was there with hope, with me in a public trial. And I was like asking her, why did you come all the way? She was like, I want to show Americans that they did everything to us. They took everything away from us, but not hope.
LISA DESJARDINS: What is the meaning of your tattoo?
MASIH ALINEJAD: Zanzendekiaza (ph) woman, life, freedom. You know, it makes me emotional because my country, women got blinded, got killed, men got executed for the crime of just peacefully chanting, woman, life, freedom. So our culture is tolerance, music, singing.
But women are in prison for the crime of singing in my country in 21st century. So I want to ask everyone to join my fight. Yes, I am an activist. I`m louder than ever, but I can`t do it on my own.
LISA DESJARDINS: You are a journalist. You are also an American citizen. President Trump has taken some actions against the media in this country. He says the media is biased against him. I wonder how you see what`s going on in this country with the media right now.
MASIH ALINEJAD: To be honest, it breaks my heart when I walk in the street, even people tell me that, Masih, we support you. Don`t go to Fox News. Some of them stop me and they say, Masih, we support you, but don`t go to CNN.
So, and I`m like, oh, my God, I`m coming from dictatorship country, having Fox News and CNN and MSNBC, PBS. It`s just our dream because we have only one state controlled TV. We have only one the cleric, the big guy making decision about everything, about my body, about nuclear, about our lifestyle, about everything.
So that`s why I want to dedicate my life to not only give voice to my people, to get rid of dictatorship, but to protect America, to protect freedom of speech from this mindset saying that, let`s cancel this, let`s cancel that. Let`s work together and love America and protect America.
LISA DESJARDINS: Masih Alinejad, what an honor to speak with you. Thank you so much.
MASIH ALINEJAD: Thank you so much for having me here.
