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September 25.2019 – Against a backdrop of an ongoing campaign aimed at silencing foreign-based activists, agents of Iran\u2019s Intelligence Ministry arrested the brother of prominent U.S.-based activist Masih Alinejad, she announced on Twitter.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe state\u2019s systematic attack on activists\u2019 families reveals the inhumane tactics they use to muzzle criticism of state policies,\u201d said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). \u201cTargeting family members is the kind of behavior expected from mafias, not law-abiding governments.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIranian authorities should stop violating citizens\u2019 basic rights by detaining and endangering activists’ and journalists’ relatives,\u201d he added. \u201cThis abhorrent practice reveals the absence of the rule of law in Iran, and the unchecked power of a lawless intelligence establishment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Based in Brooklyn, New York, Alinejad is the founder of the anti-compulsory-hijab \u201cMy Stealthy Freedom<\/a>\u201d online campaign. Her brother, Ali Alinejad, was arrested during the evening of September 24, 2019, and taken away in a blindfold and handcuffs, according to his sister.<\/p>\n In July 2018, Masih Alinejad\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0in a New York Times op-ed that Iranian authorities had pressured her family to denounce her to state-run media outlets, including in a state TV program that featured her sister publicly condemning Alinejad for her advocacy against Iran\u2019s forced hijab law.<\/p>\n CHRI has documented dozens of cases of activists\u2019 and journalists\u2019 family members being harassed and detained as part of a long-established practice by the intelligence establishment aimed at controlling Iranian citizens based abroad.<\/p>\n The weekend before Ali Alinejad\u2019s arrest, several members of U.S.-based Iranian filmmaker\u00a0Bahman Ghobadi\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0family were banned from leaving Iran and his mother summoned to court after they tried to travel to Turkey to meet him.<\/p>\n Security agencies have also\u00a0imprisoned<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0harassed<\/a>\u00a0family members of journalists based in foreign countries.<\/p>\n