Masih Alinejad

Masih Alinejad is an Iranian-American journalist, author, and distinguished women’s rights activist. She serves as co-founder and President of the World Liberty Congress, and is a co-founder of United Against Gender Apartheid, an international campaign to end systemic gender discrimination. Exiled from Iran due to her critical reporting, Alinejad has become a leading global advocate for democracy and women’s rights. She’s become a target of persistent threats from the Islamic Republic of Iran. The FBI has foiled three assassination plots against her life, and in March 2025, two men, Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov, were convicted in a New York federal court for their roles in a 2022 murder-for-hire scheme orchestrated by Iran to silence her. Alinejad gained international recognition through My Stealthy Freedom (2014), a groundbreaking campaign challenging Iran’s compulsory hijab laws, which sparked one of the largest acts of civil disobedience in the Islamic Republic’s history. She played a pivotal role in the Woman, Life, Freedom movement following Mahsa Amini’s death in 2022, amplifying Iranian women’s voices and framing the protests as a dual fight for women’s rights and democratic reform. Her activism and its personal toll are documented in the award-winning film Be My Voice (2021), directed by Nahid Persson Sarvestani. Undeterred by ongoing threats, Alinejad continues her work from exile, reaching millions through her journalism, public speaking, and advocacy. After 8 years of leading Tablet, a political satire show on Voice of America, she hosts The World According to Masih, a podcast exploring democracy, human rights, and the global struggle against authoritarianism. Her leadership has earned her prestigious honors, including Time Magazine’s Woman of the Year (2023), the Oxi Courage Award, and the Washington Institute’s Scholar-Statesman Award