Alinejad v. The Islamic Republic of Iran
| Docket Number | 19-cv-3599 (GMH) |
| Decision Date | 06 July 2023 |
| Parties | MASIH ALINEJAD, Plaintiff, v. THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
Plaintiff Masih Alinejad (“Plaintiff”) brought this action against the Islamic Republic of Iran (“Iran”) Iran's Supreme Leader Seyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei (“the Supreme Leader”), the Judiciary of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (“IRGC”) (collectively, “Defendants”) under the state sponsor of terrorism exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (“FSIA”), 28 U.S.C § 1605A. Section 1605A permits United States nationals to sue foreign states designated as state sponsors of terrorism for personal injury or death “caused by an act of torture, extrajudicial killing, aircraft sabotage hostage taking, or the provision of material support or resources for such an act.” 28 U.S.C. § 1605A(a)(1). Plaintiff alleges that, in response to her high-profile political activism against the practices and policies of the Iranian government, Defendants detained her brother, Alireza Alinejad-Ghomi (“Plaintiff's brother” or “Alinejad-Ghomi”), in September 2019, held him hostage until August 2021, and tortured him during his detention. She seeks compensatory and punitive damages from Defendants for the emotional injuries she has suffered knowing that her brother likely faced horrific treatment during his detention.
Plaintiff filed a motion for default judgment against Iran only after it failed to appear before the Court. After a thorough review of the record,[1] the Court grants Plaintiff's motion and awards her $3.325 million in total damages.[2],[3]
I.BACKGROUND[4]
Plaintiff Masih Alinejad is an Iranian-born United States citizen and a journalist, author, and political activist. See ECF No. 1 at 3. Due to her political activism, she fled Iran in 2009 around the time of the disputed Iranian Presidential election that year. See Id. at 6. Plaintiff later moved to the United States in July 2014. See Id. at 3. She became a United States citizen on October 17, 2019. See id.; ECF No. 31-8 at 2.
Plaintiff's political activism began in the 1990s, when she and her brother were both arrested after publishing material critical of the Iranian government. See ECF No. 31-3, ¶ 4. Plaintiff later made a career in journalism, covering the Iranian parliament and associated corruption. Id. Then, in 2014, Plaintiff created a Facebook page entitled “My Stealthy Freedom” to protest compulsory hijab for Iranian women. See ECF Nos. 31-14, 31-15. A hijab is loose clothing that covers the head, neck, and hair, and became mandatory for women following the Iranian Revolution in 1979. See ECF No. 31-16 at 2. Women in Iran can be arrested by “morality police” or attacked if they do not wear a hijab. See id. The Facebook page welcomed Iranian women to post pictures of themselves not wearing hijab. See ECF No. 31-14 at 1-2. Within two days of its creation, 30,000 women had posted photos showing themselves without hijab. See id.
Following Plaintiff's successful Facebook campaign in 2014, an Iranian television report claimed that three men had raped Plaintiff in London and that her seventeen-year-old son was a witness to the rape. See ECF No. 31 at 4; ECF No. 31-20 at 2. Plaintiff denied this event occurred and called the allegations “imagination.” ECF No. 31-20 at 2. She believes the allegations were intended to ruin her reputation and deter others from following in her activist footsteps. See ECF No. 31 at 4.
In 2017, Plaintiff initiated a “White Wednesdays” campaign to encourage women to post pictures or videos of themselves wearing white pieces of clothing in protest of compulsory hijab. See ECF No. 1 at 6; ECF No. 31 at 3. Plaintiff's memoir, The Wind in My Hair: My Fight for Freedom in Modern Iran, was published in 2018. ECF No. 31-3, ¶ 3. In February 2019, she met with then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to discuss the human rights situation in Iran. See ECF No. 31-17 at 2.
Plaintiff also says she initiated “a campaign for the Islamic Republic to be banned from international sports competition.” ECF No. 31-3, ¶ 29. Then, in July 2019, just months before Plaintiff's brother was detained, an Iranian judiciary official announced that persons sharing photos or videos with Plaintiff-who Iran considered to be acting on behalf of the United States and thus an enemy of the state-could face up to 10 years in prison. See ECF No. 31-18 at 3 ().
In 2019, Plaintiff's brother, Alireza Alinejad-Ghomi, made a video that was to be released in the event he was detained; the video was uploaded in May 2020. See ECF No. 31-3, ¶ 15; ECF No. 31-22 at 2. In the video, he asserted that his parents had been interrogated by Iranian officials when they refused to denounce Plaintiff on television. ECF No. 31-3, ¶¶ 14-15; ECF No. 31-22 at 2. He also encouraged Plaintiff to continue her work even if he was arrested. See ECF No. 31-22 at 2. On or about September 24, 2019, Alinejad-Ghomi was detained, allegedly by the IRGC. See ECF No. 31-24 at 2; ECF No. 31-28 at 2; ECF No. 31-42 at 2; ECF No. 31-62, ¶ 5.[5] Alinejad-Ghomi was kept in Ward 2A of Evin Prison in Tehran, “a special section for political prisoners operated by the Revolutionary Guards.” ECF No. 31 at 5; ECF No. 31-42 at 2. On July 11, 2020, Alinejad-Ghomi was sentenced to eight years in prison for “[i]nsulting the supreme leader,” “[p]ropaganda against Islamic Republic of Iran,” and “[a]ssociation and collusion to commit crimes against internal and external security” in relation to Plaintiff's campaign against compulsory hijab. ECF No. 31-23 at 2-5. Indeed, the crux of the charges against Alinejad-Ghomi appears to have been that he aided his sister's activism:
[I]nvestigations show that he was in charge of directing, guiding, and persuading Masih Alinejad in organizing anti-cultural actions and security activities, and he has been instrumental in regard to the qualitative and quantitative measures and effectiveness of Masih's anti-cultural and subversive actions aiming at improving the level of feedback and effectiveness of measures in the field of publishing criminal content.
ECF No. 31-23 at 3. On February 13, 2021, the Iranian Supreme Court apparently denied Alinejad-Ghomi's appeal. See ECF No. 31 at 6; ECF No. 31-24 at 2. However, on August 3, 2021, he was reportedly “temporarily released” from prison on bail; according to Plaintiff the release was conditioned on him not having any contact with her and can be revoked at any time. ECF No. 31-3, ¶ 44; see also ECF No. 31-62, ¶ 16.
After Plaintiff's online campaign against compulsory hijab garnered international attention, Alinejad-Ghomi reported (in the video released in May 2020) that the Iranian government began to pressure her family in Iran by continuously calling on them “to appear on television and make statements against [Plaintiff] using different techniques . . . threats, bribes.” ECF No. 31-22 at 2. In 2018, Plaintiff's sister, Mina Alinejad, appeared on National Iranian Television to publicly denounce Plaintiff. See ECF No. 31 at 14 n.51; ECF No. 31-3, ¶ 14. In March 2019, Iranian authorities reportedly interrogated Plaintiff's mother, Zarrin Badpa, for two hours about Plaintiff's activities. See ECF No. 31-28 at 2. Plaintiff's mother thereafter “severely curtailed her contacts” with Plaintiff, apparently contacting her only once in 2021 to warn Plaintiff not to travel outside of the United States. ECF No. 31-3, ¶¶ 35, 37; see also ECF No. 31 at 15-16.
Because of the arrest of Alinejad-Ghomi, Plaintiff says she is racked by anxiety, guilt, depression, sadness, recurrent nightmares, and “constant fear for how her actions could have negative repercussions for him.” ECF No. 31 at 7; ECF No. 31-3, ¶¶ 18-20, 22, 27, 29-30. Iran's treatment of her brother has “hurt [her] deeply” and she has ECF No 31-3, ¶ 27. She says continues to receive death threats and insults from Iranians and the government. ECF No. 31 at 7; ECF No 31-3, ¶¶ 34, 45; ECF No. 31-41.
On July 13, 2021, federal prosecutors in New York announced that five Iranians had been charged with conspiracy to kidnap Plaintiff “in furtherance of the government of Iran's efforts to silence [Plaintiff's] criticisms of the regime.” ECF No. 31-43 at 2-3. As part of the plot to kidnap Plaintiff, the defendants allegedly hired private investigators to monitor her and her family members in Brooklyn, New York. See Id. at 3. The then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York remarked that if those efforts to forcibly take Plaintiff to Iran were successful, her “fate would have been uncertain at best.” Id. at 2.
II. TESTIMONY AND OTHER EVIDENCE
Plaintiff supplied testimony by a signed declaration dated December 5, 2022.[6] ECF No. 31-3. She was born in 1976 in a small village in northern Iran and was the youngest of five children. See id., ¶ 3; ECF No. 31-8. She developed a close relationship with her brother, who was eighteen months older and her “guardian angel.” ECF No. 31-3, ¶ 3. He taught her “little things like riding a bicycle but also introduced [her] to great works of literature and politics.” Id.
After moving to Tehran to become a...
To continue reading
Request your trial