Seated in their yellow prison uniforms, the Russian mobsters Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov were each handed twenty-five-year prison sentences on October 29 for a failed 2022 plot to assassinate Iranian-American journalist and women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad. They had targeted Alinejad at her New York home on behalf of the Islamic Republic, marking the second case of transnational repression against her, following an international kidnapping attempt in 2021 aimed at transporting her by speedboat out to sea and eventually to Venezuela. The October sentencing—and preceding March verdict—was a major win for dissidents of Iranian origin and others who have been targeted by their governments. Judge Colleen McMahon expressed her hope that the sentencing would send a message to foreign gangs and powers like Iran “that this kind of conduct will not be tolerated by the United States.”. Yet as pressure mounts on the Islamic Republic amid the second Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” policy, and as Tehran recalibrates following the June 2025 twelve-day war, repression has skyrocketed. The regime has carried out more than 21,000 arrests since June, and more than a thousand executions since January—the highest levels in at least fifteen years. Increasingly, Tehran’s calculus includes transnational repression. This makes it imperative for the U.S. government to exert greater efforts to protect Iranian dissidents, journalists, and other vocal opponents of the clerical establishment within the United States and abroad.
The United States Must Do More for Iranian Dissidents | The Washington Institute
