‘I Don’t Feel Safe’: Iranian Journalist Pressured By IRGC After Fleeing To Turkey

By Golnaz Esfandiari

Iranian journalist Masoud Kazemi was exultant when he was released from Tehran’s notorious Evin prison in April 2020.

“The nightmare is officially over,” tweeted Kazemi, the former editor of the monthly magazine Sedaye Parsi, posting a photo of the prison where he had been held for 300 days.

Little did he know that a new nightmare was about to begin.

Following Kazemi’s release, the feared intelligence branch of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) repeatedly summoned him and tried to force him to “cooperate.”

Following many months of pressure and harassment to work with the IRGC, Kazemi left Iran for Turkey, where he and his wife are hoping to seek asylum in a third country.

Kazemi says he still worries he could be targeted by Iranian intelligence bodies, which are known to surveil Iranian activists in Turkey. He told RFE/RL that four days after purchasing a Turkish SIM card for his mobile phone, he received a call from his former interrogator who said he wanted to say “hi,” in a call that let Kazemi know he hasn’t been forgotten and that his location is likely known.

https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-journalist-pressure-turkey/31454025.html