PERSON: Masih Alinejad

Iranian-American journalist

Iranian journalist

Masih Alinejad (Persian: مسیح علی‌نژاد, born Masoumeh Alinejad-Ghomi (Persian: معصومه علی‌نژاد قمی), September 11, 1976) is an Iranian-American journalist, author, and women’s rights activist. Alinejad currently works as a presenter/producer at VOA Persian Service, a correspondent for Radio Farda, a frequent contributor to Manoto television, and a contributing editor to IranWire.

Alinejad focuses on criticism of human rights under the Islamic Republic of Iran, with a special focus on women’s rights. She now lives in exile in New York City, and has won several awards, including the 2015 Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy women’s rights award, the Omid Journalism Award from the Mehdi Semsar Foundation, and a “Highly Commended” AIB Media Excellence Award.

In 2019, Alinejad sued the Iranian government in a U.S. federal court for harassment against her and her family. She released a book in 2018 called The Wind in My Hair that deals with her experiences growing up in Iran, where she writes girls “are raised to keep their heads low, to be unobtrusive as possible, and to be meek”. In 2021, U.S. prosecutors charged four Iranian intelligence officials with plotting to kidnap a critic of the Iranian government, the target was not named, although Masih kept insisting that it was her.

>> Wikipedia.com