Iranian journalist and outspoken women's rights activist Masih Alinejad scolded the Biden administration for moving forward with the Iran nuclear deal talks despite the recent attack of author Salman Rushdie and the plotted assassinations of former Trump officials by Iranian operatives on U.S. soil.
Rushdie was stabbed in the neck last week ahead of a planned lecture in New York. The author has long been a target for decades since the 1988 publication of"The Satanic Verses," which was has been deemed critical of Islam, making enemies with Muslim countries across the world. He was nearly assassinated under the Khomeini regime in Iran and put on a hit list by al Qaeda over a decade ago. The author was taken off a ventilator and is recovering from several injuries.
Rushdie's attack resonated for Alinejad, who believes she was targeted by the Islamic Republic last month when a man was arrested near her Brooklyn home with a loaded AK-47-style rifle. She was also the target last year of an alleged kidnapping plot by Iranian nationals.
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"They say that the motive behind this terror attack is not clear," Alinejad told "America Reports" on Tuesday when asked about Rushdie's stabbing. "It is clear for many of us who know the Islamic Republic and lived under a Fatwa, under Sharia Law, under the Islamic Republic threat."
Dismissing Iran's denial of involvement, Alinejad said she hopes the U.S. government will finally accept that "assassinating is in the DNA of the Islamic Republic" and that continued cooperation with Iran will only endanger future dissidents and others on U.S. soil.
Alinejad's said she is certain she was targeted by the Iranian government for speaking out against the regime and empowering women to challenge longstanding Iranian law. She said her cause is one she's willing to die for.
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"I am sure that you invited me to talk about my experience, but I'm going to be honest with you, I don't have any fear," Alinejad said. "I'm not scared for my life. I don't want to die, don't get me wrong, but I am scared of the free world. The democratic countries who are watching the Islamic Republic assassinating, killing, murdering, kidnaping, innocent people on Western soil."
"Every single word that I'm saying here, I don't know what's going to happen to my mother, to my brother, to my family inside Iran," she added. "So I risk my life because I have freedom here, and I want to live in a free country without fear, without being followed by FBI every day, telling me that you have to watch your back. I left my country to be free and safe in America, and I deserve to have a normal life."
Last month, Alinejad publicly warned the Biden administration that if the U.S. doesn't stand up to the Iranian regime immediately, it's unlikely that she would be the last Iranian target on American soil. But with Rushdie now in the hospital and reports circulating of an Iranian plot to assassinate former White House national security adviser John Bolton and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Alinejad wondered what more it would take for the administration to act.
"It's not too much to ask," she said. "I want the U.S. administration to see this as a bipartisan issue and not bury human rights under a nuclear deal… I'm going to tell you, the regime of the Islamic Republic, the murderers, the killers, if they need to take blood, they don't care whether you belong to Republican Party or Democrat Party."
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"They don't care whether you're on the left or right. The Islamic Republic kills Americans anyway because they hate America. So right now that I'm talking to you, I want the U.S. government to…get the allies of the United States of America, the European countries, and ask them to downgrade their diplomatic relation to Iran,."
Rushdie's alleged attacker, 24-year-old Hadi Matar, has pleaded not guilty to charges related to the assault and is being held in the upstate New York Chautauqua County Jail.
