The United States has charged a senior Iranian official and three others linked to Tehran for their role in a failed assassination plot targeting VOA host Masih Alinejad.
Federal prosecutors in New York charged Ruhollah Bazghandi, a senior official in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and three other men linked to Tehran, with participating in a failed attempt to assassinate VOA Persian Service journalist Alinejad in Brooklyn in 2022, according to a new indictment made public on Tuesday.
These charges are the first to directly accuse a high-ranking official in the Revolutionary Guard, or IRGC, with a role in the plot to kill Iranian American Alinejad, a staunch critic of Iran's repression of women.
"Today's indictment exposes the full extent of Iran's plot to silence an American journalist for criticizing the Iranian regime," FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement. "As these charges show, the FBI will work with our partners here and abroad to hold accountable those who target Americans."
The indictment describes Bazghandi as a brigadier general with the IRGC. The U.S. Treasury Department last year called him a counterintelligence official.
Alinejad said this indictment confirms the lengths the Iranian government will go to in order to silence its critics.
"It shows that this is in the DNA of the Revolutionary Guards," she told VOA.
'Now we have proof'
When the FBI told Alinejad the news Tuesday morning, she said she felt a mix of excitement and sadness.
"I was so excited because now we have proof that this is a member of the Revolutionary Guards ordering a man in New York, from inside Iran, to kill a U.S. citizen," she said. "That was my reaction. Mixed feelings. Happy, but at the same time sad that the same people cannot be stopped from killing innocent women and men inside [Iran]."
When the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Bazghandi, it said he had been involved with assassination plots against journalists and others considered enemies of Tehran.
These aren't the first charges related to the killing scheme. The failed plot to kill Alinejad led to federal murder-for-hire charges against members of an Eastern European criminal organization with connections to Iran who were hired to carry out assassination.
Surveillance, harassment, intimidation
Iran is among the most prolific countries that reach across its borders to target journalists and activists overseas in a process known as transnational repression, according to Freedom House. Common tactics include surveillance, harassment and intimidation.
The failed assassination plot came one year after a failed kidnapping attempt against Alinejad in 2021. The FBI has said the kidnapping attempt was part of a Tehran plot to bring Alinejad to Iran.
Since the kidnapping attempt, Alinejad has received U.S. government protection and moved frequently between safe houses.
Despite the threats, Alinejad has refused to stop her work.
"I don't have any guns and bullets — I don't carry weapons. But this government, they have everything, and they're really scared of me," Alinejad told VOA late last year, referring to the Iranian government. "And that gives me power — that, wow, even with my words, even with my social media, I'm more powerful than them."
'This is about protecting democracy'
Iran is among the most censored countries in the world. At the end of 2023, Iran ranked among the worst jailers of journalists in the world, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, with 17 reporters behind bars.
Iran's Foreign Ministry did not immediately reply to VOA's email requesting comment.
While the United States is working to hold accountable perpetrators in this case, Kiran Nazish, the founder of the Coalition for Women in Journalism, told VOA that too many governments around the world aren’t taking transnational repression seriously enough.
“We really want to learn from this moment — that it is possible to make perpetrators accountable. And it is essential for courts and police and law enforcement to really pay attention to the issue of transnational repression,” Nazish said.
Alinejad said it's important for the U.S. government to hold Iran accountable for the plot and for Tehran's broader use of transnational repression.
"This is not a partisan issue. This is about protecting democracy. Because I don't think that they targeted me. I have no fear for my own life," Alinejad said. "The Iranian regime is challenging the U.S. government on U.S. soil, and basically this is targeting freedom of speech, and the national security and safety of America."
