Iran International
Former presidential daughter turned dissident, Faezeh Hashemi, has sparked controversy with her recent letter from Evin Prison. She accused "leftist and monarchist" prisoners of creating "an atmosphere of fear" and labeled their actions as "tyranny."
Many in Iran's "reformist" camp have welcomed Hashemi’s letter but she has come under attack from other political groups who believe she is now advocating reformism despite her past statements that the Islamic Republic is incorrigible.
The debate between regime change and reformism is a key divide in Iranian politics. A shrinking group of loyal politicians and influential figures argue that the Islamic regime, under Ali Khamenei, can still be reformed. In contrast, a growing number of dissidents and younger people in Iran and abroad are calling for regime change.
Hashemi’s father who for decades was the second most powerful man in the Islamic Republic, and helped bring Ali Khamenei to power in 1989, allowed the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) to become an economic player in the country. Still, his daughter Faezeh is known for her critical remarks about Khamenei and the IRGC.
The prominent reformist politician, journalist, and former political prisoner Abbas Abdi is among those who have praised Hashemi in a Telegram post for “courage” to speak up about the problems she has described in her letter. Ahmad Zeidabadi, another reformist politician and journalist who sympathized with Hashemi, dubbed her “the voice of the really voiceless”.
Critics including photojournalist and former political prisoner Alieh Motalebzadeh have blasted Hashemi not only for the allegations she has made in her letter against her fellow political prisoners but also for the timing of the publication of her letter, days before the second anniversary of the Woman, Life, Freedom protests.
Motalebzadeh alleged in a tweet that Hashemi has intentionally portrayed other prisoners as “jailers” when “female political prisoners have risen against death sentences and double oppression of women and are paying its costs.”
“Ideological and cultural differences make life in prison difficult for everyone. Various factors are involved in creating tensions many of which are beyond the control of the prisoner and result from the pressures of prison and security bodies. We cannot ignore the main causes and accuse other prisoners in a one-sided manner,” she wrote in another post.
Hashemi released her letter earlier this week from the Women’s Ward of Tehran’s Evin Prison where political prisoners are usually held.
The former lawmaker turned activist who was arrested during the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests is currently serving a three-year and seven-month sentence for propaganda against the regime and blasphemy with tens of other female political prisoners and activists including Nobel Peace Laureate Narges Mohammadi.
Hashemi has accused two groups, “leftists and monarchists”, of forming “pressure groups” and forcing their opinions on others. She has not named anyone in her letter, but many claim that her allegations are directed at Mohammadi and her supporters.
Neither Hashemi nor Mohammadi have yet commented on these speculations.
Hashemi has also drawn a parallel between the attitude and behavior of these fellow prisoners and the government in general throughout her long letter and accused them of exaggerating the difficulties of prison life.
Hashemi was among those who boycotted the recent presidential elections but claims that the “pressure groups” impeded eight others who were not boycotters from voting by blocking access to the ballot box taken to their ward.
In another letter from prison a year ago, Hashemi said Iranians had long moved past the reformists and voting for them in the March parliamentary elections. She also criticized the “absolute power of [the Supreme Leader] and dominance of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) in all areas” among other things.
In March the US State Department’s Persian-language Instagram page had to restrict comments to a post that featured a photo of Faezeh Hashemi as part of its Women’s History Month tributes when an overwhelming number of negative comments were made to the post.
Hashemi has served nearly two years of her three-year and 7-month of her sentence and could be released from prison according to law. Her lawyer, Mohammad-Hossein Aghassi, told the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA) Wednesday that the prosecutor has, nevertheless, refused to grant his client conditional release from prison.
Aghassi also said he and Hashemi’s brother, Mohsen Hashemi, will contact the authorities about the threat to her life in prison which she appears to be suggesting in her letter.
The revelations were reported by the Post on Thursday. One particular case involved Pouria Zeraati, an exiled Iranian journalist working for Iran International, a London-based satellite news channel that broadcasts to millions in Iran, wrote the Washington Post. In March 2023, Zeraati was ambushed and stabbed outside his home in Wimbledon by attackers who were not Iranian nationals and had no apparent ties to Iran’s intelligence services.
Instead, British investigators revealed that the assailants were Eastern European criminals hired by Tehran, underscoring how Iran has started outsourcing its plots to foreign criminals in order to avoid Western scrutiny.
“We’re not dealing with the usual suspects,” said Matt Jukes, head of counterterrorism policing in the UK. “What we’ve got is a hostile state actor that sees the battlefield as being without borders, and individuals in London are as legitimate as targets as if they were in Iran.” The attack on Zeraati, which he survived after being stabbed four times, was a warning to critics of the Iranian government that its reach is global, and its threats deadly.
According to the article, for years, Iran has been one of the world’s most determined practitioners of “transnational repression,” a term used to describe the actions of governments that use violence, intimidation, and surveillance against their own citizens abroad.
However, its reliance on criminal proxies, gangs, mafia organizations, and narco-traffickers, marks a shift in how it carries out these missions. By outsourcing assassination attempts and abductions, the Islamic Republic shields itself from direct blame and makes it harder for Western intelligence agencies to connect the dots.
The use of criminal syndicates has allowed Iran to carry out operations with relative ease. Zeraati’s attackers, for example, passed through security at Heathrow Airport, tracked him for days, and fled the country hours after the attack. Tehran’s outsourcing model has included groups such as the Russian mob network “Thieves in Law,” and the Hells Angels, known for their involvement in drug trafficking and organized crime across North America and Europe, added the report.
In some cases, these hired hands have been instructed to carry out grotesque acts of violence, such as a failed plot in Maryland where Hells Angels members were contracted to assassinate a former Iranian military officer living in the United States.
In July 2022, a gunman appeared at the Brooklyn home of Iranian American journalist Masih Alinejad, later identified as Khalid Mehdiyev, a member of the sprawling criminal network known as "Thieves in Law." This organization operates under a mafia-style code of honor to which its members are strictly bound.
Mehdiyev was arrested after being stopped for a traffic violation near Alinejad’s residence. Upon searching his vehicle, police discovered an AK-47, 66 rounds of ammunition, and a ski mask, according to a US indictment.
Iran’s partnership with the Hells Angels and other criminal gangs is partly born out of necessity. According to Western officials, the government’s own operatives face increasing scrutiny and surveillance from intelligence services, limiting their ability to conduct missions abroad. By turning to these criminal groups, the Islamic Republic circumvents the obstacles while tapping into networks that are already embedded in the West.
In 2021, US officials uncovered a plot involving two Hells Angels members hired to kill an Iranian defector and his wife in Maryland. Their orders, originating from an Iranian heroin kingpin named Naji Sharifi Zindashti, included instructions to make the killing especially brutal. One hitman was told to “erase his head from his torso.” While this plot failed after the assassins were caught, it highlights how far Iran is willing to go to silence those it sees as traitors.
Zindashti, a central figure in Iran’s outsourcing of assassinations, has been described as a “Pablo Escobar-type” drug trafficker. His operations span continents, and his criminal empire has become deeply intertwined with Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS). He is believed to have orchestrated multiple killings and kidnappings on behalf of Tehran, including the 2020 abduction and execution of Habib Chaab, an Iranian-Swedish political activist.
According to the Washington Post, these outsourced plots have extended far beyond Iranian exiles. Iran has also been implicated in attacks and threats against US and Israeli officials, Jewish communities in Europe, and LGBTQ+ activists. In 2022, a Pakistani man with ties to Iran attempted to hire a hitman to assassinate American political figures, possibly including former President Donald Trump. The US Justice Department has repeatedly warned that Iran is the most dangerous state sponsor of transnational repression, with its lethal tactics being carried out at unprecedented levels.
Despite Iran’s denials, Western intelligence services have compiled extensive evidence linking the Islamic Republic to these attacks. Since the 1979 revolution, Iran has used violence to suppress dissent, but the scale of its current campaign is without precedent. “We’re seeing a major escalation in lethal plotting from a government that has used this tactic from the outset,” said Matthew Levitt, a counterterrorism expert at the Washington Institute.
