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Hello everyone. I've been wanting to cover the uprising in Iran for quite a long time,

and finally made arrangements to do that, and have the privilege today of speaking with

Masih Alinajad. She is an Iranian journalist and a rare example of an honest and unwavering

reporter. Even more impressive is that she began her career reporting on her own government,

taking punishment such as her arrest in 1994 for distributing leaflets with critical views,

or her dismissal from her job as a parliamentary reporter in 2005 for publishing an article

that called out the parliament for taking massive bonuses in secret while publicly claiming they had

taken pay cuts. In 2018, she released a book, The Wind in My Hair, which was critical of the

Iranian government's depiction, expectation, and oppressive treatment of women.

She's the founder of the My Stealthy Freedom campaign against compulsory hijab, which since

its launch in 2014 has become the largest civil disobedience campaign for women's rights in the

history of Islamic Republic. In 2022, the American Jewish Committee awarded her the Moral Courage

Award for speaking out fearlessly in support of the Iranian people who are still being oppressed

to put it mildly by their own institutions. She currently lives in exile in New York City under

FBI protection since a coordinated kidnapping attempt by the Islamic Republic of Iran's intelligence

ministry was foiled in 2021.

Hello, Macy. Thank you very much for agreeing to talk to me today.

Thank you so much for having me Jordan.

Yeah, so I don't know. Are you a brave person? Are you a full hearty person? Can you just

not control yourself? Like you're putting yourself at an awful lot of risk here. And so,

...