Masih Alinejad
@AlinejadMasih · Europe
Masih Alinejad is followed by Storyz World for journalism and current affairs coverage connected to United Kingdom in the Europe chapter.
This is a voice message from Hossein Shanbehzadeh, or, as he calls himself, the prisoner of the dot. This message was published on Mehdi Mahmoudian’s Telegram channel to mark his 38th birthday. Hossein Shanbehzadeh, an editor, translator, and online activist, has been in prison for a long time for placing a dot beneath a tweet by Khamenei. Listen to this message patiently and at your leisure. See his sharp intelligence, sense of humor, and beautiful mind behind these sentences. Let us learn from his sense of responsibility: he himself is in prison, and a large part of this voice message speaks of the pain and suffering of prisoners held for financial reasons and the injustice they endure in the shadow of media silence and the public’s lack of attention to them. This message also ends with a poem and a song by him. His place is not in prison. #حسین_شنبه_زاده #زندانیان_سیاسی
Translated from PersianWhat a nightmare these people lived through. What crimes the Islamic Republic committed during those two days to remain in power, and the extent of them is still hidden. Listen to the shocking words of the mother of the late Maedeh Moradi-Kian. A twenty-two-year-old newlywed whose wedding had taken place only one week earlier. On 19 Dey, when the people of Iran took to the streets in Qaemshahr for freedom, Islamic Republic agents shot this girl in the head with live ammunition. Iran's little bride fell onto the street pavement. Her mother says that when they found Maedeh's body, one of her hands had been cut off with a machete, and her body was missing one hand. We still do not know whether they cut off her hand before shooting her in the head or afterward. All we know is that this crime and the mutilation of the body of this young woman, who had come to the street with empty hands, were the work of Khamenei's killers. Her mother lit a candle beside her daughter's grave and said Maedeh is my hero. I will not rest until I avenge her. Mother, we hear your voice. She is the hero of all of us, and you are not alone. We will bring the story of this crime and Maedeh's horrific killing to the whole world. #مائده_مرادی_کیان
Translated from PersianThis is Ali Zarei’s voice from inside prison. Let’s be his voice and not let the regime take the life of another innocent Iranian. #Alizarei #Iran https://t.co/UE8aXaJYW2
Sensitive and heartbreaking account. ⚠️💔 “When we found my daughter’s body, one of her hands had been cut off with a blade. Her head had been shattered by a live bullet. We still don’t know what happened first: Did they cut off her hand and torture her before shooting her in the head, or did they shoot her first and mutilate her body afterward? This is Maedeh’s mom. She says: “My daughter Maedeh was only 22 years old. She had been married for only one week. She is a hero, a real hero. I am her voice, and I will never let her story be silenced.” #Maedeh_moradikian #IranMassacre
This is the result of your trying to stand in the way of girls who do not want your forced hijab. You get kicked out because the intruder is a criminal!
Translated from PersianA woman called me a prostitute simply because I wasn’t wearing a hijab. Another woman stepped in to defend me, and threw her out of the metro. This is what solidarity looks like. «Hello dear Masih, because of the hijab she called me a whore, and this woman threw her out of the metro.» This is just one of thousands of videos of women from the campaigns #دوربین_ما_اسلحه_ماست and #چهارشنبه_های_سفید that I repost; so that the new generation knows which women fought before them against the damn compulsory hijab, morality patrol officers, and harassers, and so that we can see and learn the right way to deal with harassers and busybodies. #mycameraismyweapon
Translated from PersianThis is what enforced hijab looks like. In a clinic, a woman refuses to provide medical care to another woman because she is not wearing a hijab. “I’m in charge here. You have to wear a hijab,” she tells her. The woman refuses, drops her appointment number, and walks out. Regime supporters are now circulating the video as an example of how women who reject compulsory hijab should be treated. But no amount of intimidation can erase what is happening across Iran: millions of women are refusing to comply. Iranian women have faced detention, violence, torture, and even death for refusing to surrender their freedom. They have not backed down. The regime can enforce rules. It cannot force women to believe in them. #Iran
Let me introduce you to a brave young woman from my country, Iran. Her name was Hadis Najafi. She was only 22 years old. The morality police in Iran killed Mahsa Amini over a few strands of hair. Hadis Najafi responded by taking off her hijab entirely and going into the streets to protest the Islamic Republic. Before going out to protest, Hadis filmed herself walking in the street. She said: “I hope that years from now, I can look back and be happy that I went out to protest, because everything changed.” She never got to see those years. In September 2022, after Iran’s morality police killed Mahsa Jina Amini because they decided her hijab was “improper,” Hadis went into the streets of Karaj to end this barbaric regime. She went for Mahsa. She went to demand freedom from a murderous regime. Hadis was unarmed. Her voice was her only weapon. But Security forces opened fire. I spoke to her family. They told me how they saw the pellet wounds all over her body her face, her neck, her chest. Hadis was killed. And killing her was not enough. The authorities pressured her family to say she died naturally. They withheld her body and tried to silence them. Her family refused. Even at her funeral, security forces surrounded them. They could not even mourn their 22-year-old daughter in peace. Think about this: First, they killed a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa, over a few strands of hair. Then they killed another 22-year-old woman, Hadis, for protesting her killing. They tried to erase Hadis. Instead, she became a symbol. Today, more women across Iran walk publicly without compulsory hijab. Hadis dreamed that one day she would look back and see that everything had changed and Iran will be free from Islamic Republic. That dream is not dead. What shocks me is how many young people I meet at universities and colleges across the free world who have never heard her name. They know so many heroes from history, but they don’t know the heroes who are making history right now. That is why I tell these stories.
An angry regime supporter these days, who does not know what to do when seeing millions of Iranian women defying the hijab law, wrote: What destruction… wow! Your inept leader and his die-hard supporters have vilified, mocked, and threatened me and the women of the #WhiteWednesdays campaign thousands of times. This is one example at your filthy Friday prayers after the kidnapping and execution of Zam, for which Khamenei also issued a fatwa for my kidnapping and murder, and the regime supporters cheered and applauded!
Translated from PersianIn fact, you really tried hard to stop this freedom, and you claimed that you were the majority, that no woman would remove her hijab, and that it was all the propaganda of White Wednesdays and those living abroad! What happened? Have you now realized that humiliation, smears, threats, and terror cannot stop the wave of brave women? Keep turning so we can turn too.
Translated from PersianHeartbreaking 💔 They killed a 21-year-old rapper in prison. No one knows how. Erfan Mirzaei, a 21-year-old rapper arrested during Iran’s January protests. His “crime”? A video on his phone showing that he had attended protests. The regime used that video to accuse him of moharebeh (“waging war against God”) and sentence him to death. Now, no one can say for certain how Erfan died. Some reports say he was secretly executed early Sunday morning, September 6, without his family being informed. Others, citing people close to him, say he died after months of torture and beatings aimed at forcing a confession. When his body was returned, his family reportedly found his hands, legs and pelvis broken, with bruises and swelling covering his face and body. His family says they had previously been threatened not to speak about his fate. Even his burial was kept secret. Authorities reportedly refused to allow him to be buried in Isfahan and buried him under heavy security in the village of Gharghen in Faridan. We don’t know whether Erfan was executed or beaten to death in prison. His family doesn’t know either. But we know this: Iran’s regime has silenced the voice of a 21-year-old artist forever. #Erfan_Mirzaei
Let me introduce you to Aida Rostami, another hero from my country, Iran. She was 36 years old. A general physician. During January arising in 2026,, while the streets of Iran were filled with injured protesters, Aida chose to do help them. She was a doctor. Her job was to save lives. Quietly and anonymously, she traveled to homes in western Tehran,l, to provide medical care to protesters who were afraid to go to hospitals because they feared arrest, torture, or worse. On December 12, 2022, Aida left her home of one of the injured protesters to get medical supplies. She never came back. The next day, her family was called to a police station and told that Aida had died in a car accident. But when her family saw her body, they saw something very different. Her hands were broken. The right side of her face was crushed. Her nose was shattered. Her left eye had been severely injured. There were bruises across her body. Her family questioned the official story. And then the story changed. First, they said it was a car accident. Later, authorities claimed she had fallen from a pedestrian bridge. Her family continued to reject the official accounts. And later, her brother released an audio recording that shed light on the pressure security forces had placed on the family. They took her life. Aida was not carrying weapons, she was carrying medical supplies. She was treating wounded people. I have a question: How many people outside Iran know the name of Aida Rostami? How many doctors around the world know the story of a physician who risked everything to treat injured protesters when hospitals were no longer safe?
این ویدیوییست از گلایه یک شهروند از وضعیت گرانیها. این زن میگوید که چند نوشیدنی و سالاد و سیبزمینی برایشان ۴ میلیون و صد هزار تومان فاکتور شده است. او میگوید سفارششان حتی شامل وعده غذای اصلی نبوده است. افزایش سرسامآور و بیقاعده قیمتها حالا عملا به شکلی شده است که بسیاری از شهروندان در ایران حالا دغدغه تهیه وعدههای غذایی روزانه خود را دارند. و این در حالیست که همه میدانیم ثروت ایران یا توسط آقازادهها تاراج میشود و یا خرج نیابتیهای منطقه و همچنین ساخت پناهگاه و شهرهای زیرزمینی موشکی میشود. #گرانی #ایران
Translated from PersianURGENT: In just one week, two grieving family members of people killed in Iran’s January Uprising died by suicide. This is not just a personal tragedy. It is a warning. In my conversations with survivors of the Islamic Republic’s repression and with the families of those who have been killed, executed, or imprisoned, I keep hearing about the same invisible wound: severe trauma, depression, grief, and hopelessness. Mental health is becoming one of the most overlooked consequences of authoritarian violence. Former political prisoners, activists, victims of torture, and grieving families are expected to somehow survive what has happened to them, often with little or no psychological support. In Afghanistan, too, I am hearing devastating stories of girls and young women taking their own lives after being stripped of education, freedom, and hope. Dictatorships do not only kill, torture, and imprison. They leave psychological destruction behind. We need to start talking about mental health as part of the human rights crisis, before more lives are lost. 💔🌹
It is hard to believe. Within just a few days, two people who had lost loved ones in Iran’s protests died by suicide. On September 6, Danial Karimi, the father of Amir Mohammad Karimi, ended his life. His 19-year-old son had been an athlete and a former member of Iran’s national junior taekwondo team. Amir Mohammad was shot and killed during protests in Marvdasht on January 9, 2026. Just days earlier, 25-year-old Aida Heydari, the fiancée of Abolfazl Soleimani Al-Mouti, also died by suicide, roughly eight months after he was killed. Their wedding was supposed to take place this month. Abolfazl, 27, was shot and killed by security forces during protests in Zibashahr, Qazvin, on January 9. This is what repression looks like long after the gunfire stops. The Islamic Republic does not only take lives in the streets. It leaves families behind to carry unbearable grief, trauma, and loneliness. The bullets kill once. The consequences can keep killing.
THEIR WEDDING WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THIS MONTH. But Aida could not bear the pain of losing her fiancé to the regime’s bullets, and ultimately took her own life. 💔 Aida Heydari, 25, was engaged to Abolfazl Soleimani, a 27-year-old young man who was shot and killed by regime forces during the protests in Zibashahr, Qazvin, on January 9, 2026. On Thursday, September 3, Aida took her own life, in the very month when they were supposed to get married and begin their life together. What a tragedy. So many young lives filled with love, hope, and dreams, destroyed. #AidaHeydari #AbolfazlSoleimani #IranMassacre
ONE BULLET, TWO VICTIMS. Have you ever stopped to think about what it means for a mother or father to wake up every day after losing their child to the bullets of Khamenei’s killers? Danial Karimi, the father of 19-year-old Amir Mohammad Karimi, lived with the unbearable pain of losing his son for eight months. Now, heartbreaking reports say that Daniel has taken his own life. If confirmed, the Islamic Republic has taken two lives with a single bullet. Amir Mohammad was only 19. An athlete and former member of Iran’s national youth taekwondo team, he was shot and killed during the protests in Marvdasht on January 9, 2026. The families who have lost their loved ones must not be left to carry this pain alone. Their grief is our collective responsibility. We must stand with them and never let their loved ones be forgotten. #AmirMohammadKarimi #DanialKarimi #IranMassacre
They hanged him at dawn.💔 The Islamic Republic executed rapper Erfan Mirzaei on Sunday, September 6, at the morning adhan, in Dastgerd Prison in Isfahan. No warning. No last call to his family. The rope and the silence. He was a young rapper. His crime was standing against a regime that kills to survive. He sang of freedom and hope in a country where a song can cost your life. Those who knew him remember a young man full of fire, art, and big dreams. The regime stole all of it in a single dawn, while the world slept. He was arrested during the January protests and executed in secret, while the Islamic Republic continues slaughtering January protesters in Iran's prisons under a total news blackout. His funeral is today, Say his name. Do not let the gallows have the last word.
A regime that blinded these women and hanged men for peacefully demanding freedom must be met with handcuffs in democratic countries, not handshakes. This is exactly why I stood at the UN Security Council and directly criticized the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Millions of us Iranians believe that when UN officials send congratulations to the very criminals who have carried out massacres in Iran, they forfeit their moral authority to speak about global peace and security. You cannot congratulate executioners and claim to defend human rights. The Islamic Republic is not a normal government. They don’t represent the People of Iran. We are talking about a regime that has massacreed thousands of peaceful protesters, blinded women and men by deliberately shooting pellets into their eyes, poisoned schoolgirls with chemicals simply for daring to seek an education free from ideology and finishing off the wounded ones in hospitals. These are not allegations. These are documented crimes. And this violence does not stop at Iran’s borders. The regime practices transnational repression: assassination plots in New York, kidnapping attempts, terror networks across Europe and the Middle East. It hunts dissidents abroad while lecturing the world about sovereignty. Allowing its foreign minister to speak at the Human Rights Council is not diplomacy. It is normalization of mass murder. When you give a microphone to a regime that blinds women, poisons schoolgirls, and executes protesters, you are not protecting peace. You are empowering them to kill more of us . History will not forget who stood with the victims and who stood with their killers.
The Islamic Republic shot Ali Zarei in the eye. Now, they want to execute him. Ali was blinded during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests and later fled to Germany. After returning to Iran, he was arrested and sentenced to death. Don’t let Ali’s voice be silenced. #AliZarei https://t.co/Xhp1356HLX
Heartbroken. 💔 Just watch this video from inside Iran, which has been viewed and shared thousands of times on X. She wasn’t crying over a pair of shoes. She was crying out of desperation, a desperation shared by millions of Iranians who can no longer plan even for the near future. She had saved for a long time to buy a pair of shoes, only to see their price rise by another five million tomans overnight. She broke down in the middle of the street, saying she simply couldn’t take it anymore. This is the reality for millions of Iranians: people holding broken phones together with tape, cutting meat from their tables, and living in fear that their refrigerator or another essential appliance might break,because they know they can no longer afford to replace it. Every time they take one small step toward a normal life, inflation and economic instability push them backward. A regime that spends billions on missiles and its proxies has made it impossible for a young woman to plan for something as ordinary as a pair of shoes. This psychological collapse is the result of years of looting, corruption, and putting ideology before people’s lives. The people of Iran have the right to live, not merely survive. #Iran
The heartbreaking story of two young sisters who protested in Iran and were reportedly sexually assaulted in detention. Twin sisters Taraneh and Romina Rahimi were just 20 years old. One dreamed of opening her own equestrian club. The other worked in a shoe shop. Today, one is facing execution. The other has been sentenced to 25 years in prison. The sisters, from Isfahan, were arrested in the middle of the night. Security forces broke into their home, tied their hands and feet, put bags over their heads, and took them away. For four months, no one knew where they were. Their mother spent night after night searching outside courthouses, prisons, and hospitals, desperate to find her daughters. When she finally saw them in Dowlatabad Prison, both had bruised and swollen faces. Parts of their hair had fallen out or had reportedly been ripped out. Taraneh said that while held in solitary confinement, she could hear her sister screaming and crying as she was tortured. Interrogators repeatedly struck Taraneh’s previously operated knee and threatened to sexually assault her sister if she refused to sign forced confessions. According to Taraneh, a prison medical official told her: “You’re going to die anyway. What difference does it make whether you die with a broken leg or a healthy one?” A complaint alleging sexual assault during detention was formally filed. Yet the court did not hold even a single hearing to investigate the allegation. Instead, the two sisters and other defendants in the case were handed death sentences and decades-long prison terms. Confessions extracted under torture. Lawyers given just ten minutes to review an 8,000-page case file. A judge who insulted the defendants more than 20 times during the proceedings. Two young irani women had dreams and that is why they joined the January uprising to demand Freedom. Now one faces the gallows and the other could spend the best years of her life behind bars. Be their voice. #TaranehRahimi #RominaRahimi
The Iranian regime was taking him to be executed, he suffered a heart attack on the way. They had to take him to the hospital and treat him. Now they have moved him to solitary confinement to execute him again. 💔 SAY HIS NAME: ALIREZA SEPAHI #Alirezasepahi #Iran https://t.co/G2zYKTUv54
The Islamic Republic shot out his eye. Now it wants to take his life. Branch 23 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court has sentenced Ali Zarei, a survivor of the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising, to death on the charge of “corruption on earth.” The sentence was reportedly communicated to him in recent days. He is now being held in Qezel Hesar Prison. His social media bio later read: “I sacrificed my eye for the freedom of my country.” According to Ali, an interrogator told him: “We shot you in the eye, and we’re happy about it.” The Islamic Republic took his eye for demanding freedom. Now it wants to put a rope around his neck for refusing to be silent. Ali Zarei needs the world’s attention now before it is too late. Be his voice.
Death sentence for joining making this video. Look at this video. What could possibly be more peaceful than this? Ali-Asghar Peyghambari simply closed his curtain shop and joined a bazaar strike protesting Iran’s devastating economic conditions. He filmed this peaceful act of defiance and posted it on Instagram. Now, the Islamic Republic has sentenced this young shopkeeper to death. This is what terrifies the regime: ordinary people who refuse to surrender their dignity, even when threatened. Watch this video. Share his name. Be his voice before it is too late. #StopExecutionsInIran