From Maryam Rajavi to Masih Alinejad: No Seizure Allowed
From Maryam Rajavi to Masih Alinejad: No seizure allowed. Protests led by the people, women, and the generation of the 80s cannot be co-opted. This is evident from the actions of the protesters on social media, especially the famous figures who, with smart and timely reactions, prevent individuals and unoriginal movements from exploiting these protests. They neither allow themselves to be labeled as affiliated with the external Mojahedin or internal reformists, nor do they allow the likes of Rajavi and Alinejad to co-opt the protests for their own benefit. This was even acknowledged in an unusual and different article by a Fars News Agency reporter, stating that the young street protesters have no relation to the groups we have often heard about.
Hashtag Maryam Rajavi Got Hit
The fact that the name of neither of these two, especially Rajavi, has been heard or seen in any of the protests of the Iranian people since 2009, to give them the illusion of leading the protest movements of the Iranian people, is so clear that it doesn’t need mentioning. However, the issue is that in all these protests, the Mojahedin Organization and Maryam Rajavi, with their claims of imaginary support, have always given security institutions an excuse to create cases against protesters and social-political activists. In reality, Maryam Rajavi, who has repeatedly claimed to be the President of Iran, has always sought to fish in the troubled waters of Iranian protests, turning the atmosphere against the protesters.
But this time, on social networks, especially on Twitter, no one allowed her and her associates to appear, and they suffocated her attempt to gain advantage in its infancy. The widespread attacks by political figures and celebrities, especially Ali Karimi, were so significant that almost no symbol or sign of her and her organization was seen on the timeline. Wherever she and her organizational members appeared with their identity and symbol, they were boycotted and blocked. The attackers mostly used the phrase ‘Maryam Rajavi Got Hit’ to both show their intense disgust for this movement and to prevent her and her organization from exploiting the situation and internal forces from creating cases.
The irony is that a person who has not only enforced hijab within her organization but also forced them to wear a uniform is now supporting protests against the morality police and compulsory hijab. An organization that interferes in the smallest personal affairs of its members and keeps them like obedient children under the strictest organizational constraints, where the smallest disobedience is punishable, now claims to support a generation whose main demand is freedom in choosing their lifestyle.
The Erroneous Leader
Masih Alinejad has made significant mistakes these days. Her first mistake was claiming leadership of the Iranian protest movement. After that, she ordered attacks and seizures of Iranian embassies abroad, and a strange mistake that some believe is unlikely to be accidental was the deviation in the Mahsa Amini hashtag, ruining the trend. Screenshots of her tweets showed that she repeatedly misused this hashtag, and due to the high feedback of her tweets, it led to the creation of a parallel hashtag trend, causing the original hashtag to fall out of trend. Twitter users made great efforts to trend the correct hashtag again.
Alinejad first claims leadership, then gives an incorrect attack order, and even misrepresents a protester’s video as another killed protester without feeling the need to verify it. Although, due to the intelligence and pressure of public opinion on social networks, especially with the help of Twitter’s democratic and interactive space, the attacks on her intensified to the point where she was forced to retreat from her positions and claims. All these mistakes in such a short span from someone who claimed leadership.
While some protests in front of the Islamic Republic’s embassies in Paris and London led to tensions and some arrests, Masih Alinejad was also fueling the flames. This is while a Twitter user addressed her, questioning how she doesn’t know that attacking an embassy can lead to residency cancellation, fines, and imprisonment. Some even suggested that she should take the lead in operationalizing her suggestion. Others wrote that we don’t need to reproduce Asgharzadehs.
A social media user categorized the activities of this self-proclaimed leader of the Iranian women’s protest movement over the past two weeks as follows:
- Mahsa Amini Had a Stroke
- We Are All Kurds
- Women’s Revolution
- Creating Parallel Hashtags
- Claiming Leadership of the Movement
- Attributing Another’s Photo to Hadis Najafi
- Creating the Hadis Najafi Hashtag to Diminish the Mahsa Amini Hashtag
- Ordering Attacks on Embassies
Profiting from People’s Blood
Twitter and social media activists rightly proved to her that the only leader and guide of the Iranian people’s protest movement are the people inside Iran themselves, and no individual or movement can make a hat for themselves from this felt, especially when it later becomes clear that Masih Alinejad has defined many of her so-called media actions as projects and receives large budgets from American institutions. Documents related to the grants and funds she received from American government-affiliated institutions for her projects have been published in recent days, with some amounts being very large.
In an audio file released from Salome Seyednia, a host on the Manoto network, it is also mentioned that despite the request of Pouya Bakhtiari’s mother not to broadcast a documentary related to him due to pressure from security institutions, Masih Alinejad published parts of it and even demanded 10,000 pounds from the CEO of the Manoto network for the unpublished documentary. A media activist wrote that she crossed miles beyond profiteering with the tears of Pouya Bakhtiari’s mother.
In the meantime, Fatemeh Shams, a sociologist and the former wife of Hamidreza Jalaeipour, also shared a personal story on Twitter, showing that Masih Alinejad is more of a political opportunist than a political or media activist. When it suited her interests, she associated with reformists, and now that the benefit is in attacking reformists, she has turned against them. The whole story can be summarized in this user’s tweet: We don’t want a uniformed Maryam Rajavi, nor do we want a Masih Alinejad leading the sabotage.
Iran Gate has specifically analyzed and reported on the events of the nationwide protests in Iran in 2022.
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