Masih Alinejad

Iranian-American journalist and women’s rights campaigner Masih Alinejad, author of the bestselling memoir The Wind in My Hair, is one of the most prominent and vocal figures challenging the Islamic Republic of Iran. She was one of Time’s 2023 Women of the Year. 

In 2014, she launched the My Stealthy Freedom campaign against compulsory hijab, which became the largest civil disobedience movement in the history of Islamic Republic. She has more than 12 million followers on her social media accounts, and she writes and hosts Tablet, a satirical weekly show on Voice of America. In 2022, she received the Oxi Courage Award; the Washington Institute Statesman-Scholar Award, and American Jewish Committee’s Moral Courage Award. 

As a teenager, Alinejad was arrested and jailed for producing a student newspaper. She became a parliamentary journalist and worked for a number of reformist newspapers in Tehran. In 2009, she was forced to leave Iran after the crackdown on protests against the disputed presidential elections.