Masood Masjoody had a long history of firing accusations at those he considered adversaries. So when he claimed on social media last fall that two fellow Iran-born activists were plotting to kill him, it did not get much notice. Then the mathematician disappeared in early February. By mid-March, police in British Columbia had found his body and brought first-degree murder charges against the pair Masjoody said were after him.
It was startling news for Iranians outside the country, particularly those who oppose both its government and a campaign to make the son of its former king Iran’s next leader. Days after Masjoody disappeared, 10 other outspoken diaspora figures, most of them critics of the monarchist campaign or the war with Iran, were tagged in an ominous message on the social platform X. “Soon you’ll have to find the corpses of many,” it warned. The post, written in Farsi and topped by a knife emoji, came from a since-deactivated account named for the SAVAK, the feared secret police once used by the monarchy to crack down on dissent.
Nik Kowsar, one of those tagged in the post, said he had long received negative messages on social media, blocking accounts to prevent intimidation. “But this one gave me chills,” said Kowsar, who was jailed in Iran in 2000 over a cartoon satirizing a leading cleric and now lives in Washington, D.C. Once an unpaid adviser to Pahlavi, he has become an outspoken critic, accusing monarchists of seeking to replace one form of authoritarian rule with another. Similar threats have since been made against other Iranian activists.
Two other activists tagged in the X post said they had reported it to police and altered their routines to stay safe. “With the latest threat after that Canadian Iranian activist disappeared, I’ll be honest with you, I freaked out,” said Alireza Nader, a security analyst in Washington, D.C. Nader, who once backed Pahlavi but is now a vocal critic, said he now avoid protests and other public events.
Kowsar said that days before Masjoody went missing, they discussed a harassment suit the latter was pursuing against Pahlavi supporters.
Masjoody filed more than half a dozen suits since 2014, with a Canadian judge last year labeling him a “vexatious litigant.” Defendants in the final lawsuit included one later charged with his murder, as well as Pahlavi himself. In a court filing last fall, Pahlavi said he did not know Masjoody and denied the allegations.
Another recipient of the message on X, Kambiz Ghafouri, said he had long been wary of retaliation by Iran’s government, even after living in Finland for 20 years. Threats that appear to come from within the diaspora have deepened those fears, he said. “Our lives were like hell every day in Iran,” he said. “But recently, especially after the death of Masood, who was my friend, we feel unsafe here.”
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