NEW YORK CITY, USA – Businessman and activist Rousbeh Farahanipour is about 12,200 kilometers (7,600 miles) from his native Iran. But even that distance isn’t enough for the 54-year-old to feel completely safe.
Farahanipour has lived in exile in the United States since 2000, fleeing a death sentence in Iran. He left behind the Iranian opposition party he founded, Marzeh pol Gokhar.
But fleeing Iran does not mean fleeing the threats it faced. After resettling in the Los Angeles area, Farahanipour remembers a period of seven months when her car’s tires would wear out every few weeks.
Then in 2022, another incident prompted the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to condemn Iran’s violent crackdown on protesters.
Farahanipour later learned during his testimony that the door of one of the restaurants, Persian Gulf Cafe, had been shattered by gunfire. He suspects both incidents are connected to his activists.
“When I sleep with one eye open and one eye closed, I feel like I’m not safe,” Farahanipour said. But it’s the same in Iran, he added. “90 million people will be unsafe in Iran.”
Still, Iranian dissidents in the United States have faced new uncertainty since the country joined Israel in its war against Iran on February 28.
Some fear that rising tensions with Iran could threaten their security in the United States. Others fear the war will lead to hostile attitudes toward immigrants and Iranian-Americans, who make up the world’s largest Iranian diaspora community of more than 413,000 people.
Negar Razavi, a scholar at Princeton University’s Mossavar Rahmani Center for Iranian and Persian Gulf Studies, described the sentiment among the opposition as an atmosphere of “double fear.”
“There is a sense that nowhere is truly safe for them,” she told Al Jazeera. “They’re not safe here, and they’re not safe back home.”
Even in the United States, there is no guarantee of sanctuary, Razavi said. He noted that the administration of US President Donald Trump forcibly returned a group of Iranians to Iran as recently as January, despite concerns that they could face persecution.
This was the third such flight, following one in September that involved around 120 people and one in December that involved more than 50 people.
“The fact that the Trump administration has deported more than 100 Iranians, most of them refugees and asylum seekers, is frightening to many people,” Razavi said.
