New York — Masoud Masjoudi had a long history of making accusations against those he saw as opponents. So when he claimed on social media last fall that two fellow Iranian-born activists were planning to kill him, it received little attention.
Then the mathematician disappeared in early February. By mid-March, police in British Columbia found his body and charged the couple who Masjoudi said were pursuing him with first-degree murder.
This was startling news to Iranians outside the country, especially those who oppose its government and the campaign to appoint the son of its former king as Iran’s next leader. Days after Masjoudi’s disappearance, 10 more expatriate figures, most of them critics of the royal campaign or the war with Iran, were tagged in an ominous message on the social platform X.
“Soon you will have to find the bodies of many,” she warned.
The post, written in Persian and topped with a knife emoji, came from a since-deactivated account bearing the name of SAVAK, the feared secret police once used by the monarchy to suppress dissent.
The issue has heightened tensions in a diaspora divided over the war and who should lead the country if its government falls. The recipients of that threat and others blame the influential movement he leads Exiled Crown Prince Who supports The war launched by the United States and Israel. The two accused of killing Masjoudi opposed the Iranian government and supported the monarchy movement in online posts.
Supporters Reza PahlaviThe son of the deposed Shah 1979 Islamic RevolutionThey denied the campaign’s responsibility for such threats and accused government agents of posing as online activists. The Iranian government also has a long history of Targeting opponents abroad.
Anti-war activists and those who oppose Pahlavi describe a climate of fear that has led some to notify police and change their routines.
Nick Kosar, one of the people tagged in the post, said he had long received negative messages on social media and blocked the accounts to prevent intimidation.
“But this one gave me chills,” said Kawsar, who was imprisoned in Iran in 2000 for a cartoon mocking a prominent cleric, and now lives in Washington, D.C. Kawsar, who had been an unpaid advisor to Pahlavi, has become an outspoken critic, accusing the royalists of seeking to replace one form of authoritarian rule with another. “But this one gave me goosebumps.”
Since then, similar threats have been made against other Iranian activists.
It is difficult to measure the extent of support Pahlavi enjoys inside or outside Iran.
His call for protests brought in January Hundreds of thousands into the streets In the largest demonstrations in years. The government launched a fierce crackdown, killing thousands of people and arresting tens of thousands.
Pahlavi, who lives in Maryland, says he is ready to take power and lead a democratic transition once the clerical rule is overthrown. But this scenario looked increasingly unlikely as Iran weathered weeks of attacks And now a naval blockadeWith no sign of a popular uprising since the war began.
Sahar Razavi, director of the Center for Iranian and Middle Eastern Studies at California State University, Sacramento, said the diaspora has become increasingly polarized as the royal movement has become more “radical, more entrenched and more coordinated.”
“They demand unity of voice and purity of politics, and anyone who fails to achieve that is not just their competitor, but their enemy who must be defeated,” said Razavi, whose position added security at the events after she was harassed for hosting a journalist whom some accused of being in league with the Iranian government.
A spokesman for the National Union for Democracy in Iran, which is closely allied with Pahlavi, said the exiled prince had “consistently called for civility in public discourse” and that the movement was not responsible for hostility toward opponents.
“The prince has, by any estimate, millions of followers. He cannot be reasonably held responsible for all of their comments,” Andrew Galilei, the group’s policy director, said in an email. “Second, the Islamic Republic has a history of appearing to be supportive of the opposition online to discredit it.”
Two other activists tagged in X’s post said they reported the matter to police and changed their routines to stay safe.
“With the latest threat after the disappearance of the Iranian-Canadian activist, I’ll be honest with you, I’m scared,” said Alireza Nader, a security analyst in Washington, D.C. Nader, who once supported Pahlavi but is now a vocal critic, said he now avoids protests and other public events.
Other diaspora activists say they or their groups have also received disturbing threats.
Chicago activist Ali Taroukh said he received a phone call in March from a number he knew belonged to another Iranian immigrant. Taroukh said that the caller accused him of being an Iranian government agent and threatened to “pursue” him. He informed the police and asked the judge to issue a restraining order against the caller.
Taroukh criticized supporters of the war, noting its impact on ordinary Iranians, and continued to speak at peace rallies despite the threat.
“It doesn’t matter if you say to them: ‘I agree with you, the regime must go, but I don’t agree with your approach.'” “There is absolutely no tolerance,” said Taroukh, who was imprisoned for his work as a student activist in Iran and received political asylum in the United States 12 years ago.
The National Iranian American Council, which advocates for US diplomacy with Iran, has also seen a rise in threats.
In January, staff received an email warning that they would be “responsible for all loss of life” if they continued to hold an anti-war forum in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Eitan Mabourach, NIAC’s director of organizing, said organizers notified law enforcement by email before moving the event online.
A second letter addressed to the group’s president threatens to “leave your body in the water” if speakers do not condemn Iran’s leaders.
Some recipients of the threats blame Pahlavi’s supporters for offensive language online. But with Iran, Israel, the United States and various opposition groups eager to present narratives about the war and diaspora politics, it is not always clear whether online accounts are who they say they are.
“I have to believe that a lot of the things we see online aren’t created by real users. But that’s not very comforting when we see people we know in real life sharing or repeating them,” said Amy Malik, of William’s Company. & Mary is a professor whose research focuses on the Iranian diaspora.
Kawsar said that days before Masjoudi’s disappearance, they discussed the harassment case that the latter was filing against Pahlavi’s supporters.
Masjoudi has filed more than six lawsuits since 2014, and a Canadian judge last year described him as a “malicious litigant.” Among the defendants in the final case was a person who was later charged with his murder, in addition to Pahlavi himself. In a lawsuit last fall, Pahlavi said he did not know Masjoudi and denied the accusations.
Another recipient of the message on He added that threats that appear to come from within the diaspora have deepened these fears.
“Our lives were like hell every day in Iran,” he said.
But recently, especially after the death of Masoud, who was my friend, we feel unsafe here.”
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Associated Press writer Sudhin Thanawala in Atlanta contributed to this story.