As an Iranian-American political analyst who has dedicated my career to exposing the regime in Tehran, I know firsthand the dangers of speaking out against the Islamic Republic.
I live in Los Angeles — home to largest community of Iranians outside the country itself — where I have dealt with threats for more than two decades.
For those of us who have spent years telling the truth about the regime, the feeling is familiar. They want us to know they are here.
In 2006, after moving to LA, a man I believed to be an operative of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) followed me on foot through Westwood Village.
When I noticed him, I ducked into a local store and walked the aisles for a few minutes before he left.
In a severe hacking attempt a few years ago, my websites, email and social media accounts were all taken over. On another occasion, I was emailed the link to a website on my birthday featuring my photographs and describing me a Mossad agent.
Hackers also accessed my photos and sent pictures of me in a bikini to my husband’s email. I understood exactly what they wanted me to take from that — they could access my private life. They knew who my husband was and how to reach him.
That is how intimidation works when the target is thousands of miles from Iran. The threat reaches a family member. The person exposing the regime’s abuses has to spend time recovering accounts and thinking about what else has been compromised.
These threats have led me to work closely with the local FBI, and agents have conducted routine patrols around my home because they recognize I am a target.
I receive still threats daily on my X and Instagram accounts, but the experience began long before I made a career of reporting on Iran.
When I was an undergraduate at Rutgers, a threat arrived in my student mailbox, written with letters cut out of a magazine.
The message was that they would get me. I was president of the university’s Iranian club.
Then came the heavy-breathing messages on my dorm room answering machine.
Eventually, the man threatening me approached me in person. We recognized him as someone who had volunteered for our Nowruz gala, our Persian New Year celebration. I understood him to be an operative of the IRGC.
I have been on the regime’s radar for many years. Long before I made a career of reporting on Iran, I understood how far its intimidation could travel.
I remember recording footage at a popular café in Westwood Village during the World Cup. Iranian Americans covered their faces because they feared repercussions back in Iran. Even watching a soccer match came with a calculation about who might see the footage and what could happen afterward.
That is what I thought about when I read Iran International’s latest report about a platform the Islamic Republic is promoting to identify its opponents overseas.
The platform, called Alaj, asks people to report Iranians abroad whom it considers threats to national security, according to Iran International. The platform’s website also publishes names and photographs, sometimes alongside national identification numbers and family information, the outlet reports.
Iranian state media claim the platform has identified and monitored 1,600 people, including 600 identified through public submissions. The advertised penalties include freezing assets and withdrawing access to consular and citizenship services.
The regime is telling Iranians that leaving the country does not end its authority over them. Speak freely abroad, and it will look for something it can still take from you.
Those of us who work on Iran recognize the message. They want us wondering who is watching and whether someone we have welcomed into our community is reporting back.
The uncertainty does some of their work for them. A person who worries about appearing in a photograph may decide to stay home from a protest. A potential source may stop answering a journalist’s calls. The regime benefits every time someone decides speaking out is too risky.
Inside Iran, authorities have already put public informants to work through technology. UN investigators documented the use of the Nazer app, which lets vetted members of the public report women for violating mandatory hijab rules
Iran International reports that Alaj also allows the IRGC to ask people to identify citizen journalists and opponents online.
The same approach now reaches beyond the border. Everyone becomes a potential informant, and the person being watched is supposed to adjust his or her behavior accordingly.
Beijing has helped supply the technology behind Iran’s surveillance capabilities. In 2023, Reuters, citing Wall Street Journal reporting, reported that products from the Chinese surveillance company Tiandy had been sold to IRGC units.
For journalists and researchers covering Iran, the threats also arrive through seemingly routine professional contacts. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International’s Security Lab documented an Iranian state-backed phishing campaign using fake conference invitations to target people working on Middle East issues, with some victims’ email accounts compromised.
The danger extends well beyond stolen passwords. In March, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) seized four websites it said were linked to Iran’s intelligence ministry. The websites, DOJ said, facilitated hacking and intimidation, including death threats against dissidents and journalists. Publishing information about a target can be part of preparing an attack or frightening that person into silence.
This is the regime’s soft war against people who expose it. The pressure reaches into Western countries and challenges their ability to protect free speech on their own soil.
For Iranian Americans in LA, the right to criticize Tehran should be as secure as the right to criticize Washington. Nobody should have to wonder whether attending a community event will put a relative in Iran at risk. An American university should be a place where a student can lead an Iranian club without being threatened by the government her family left behind.
American authorities should investigate people who collect information for intimidation campaigns and pursue those responsible for threats. We need to take these reports seriously, and technology companies should preserve evidence when their services are used to target dissidents.
Tehran wants the people exposing its abuses to decide the cost is too high. It wants Americans to accept that its reach extends into our communities.
We should be making it clear to the regime whose laws apply here.
Lisa Daftari is a foreign policy analyst and media commentator based in Los Angeles.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
