Thread by @AlinejadMasih

1-In response to my @washingtonpost op-ed on how @IlhanMN's proposed legislation against Islamophobia could silence legitimate concerns about Islamist extremism, her husband defamed me using the same language used by Islamists as a pretext to repress their feminist critics

2- Like the Taliban & Islamic Regime in Iran -who refuse to call us by our name-@TimMynett dismissed me as “this lady.” Though I wrote “I have many relatives who are pious Muslims I love & respect, including my beloved mother”-he had the audacity to call me a self-hating Muslim

3- This is as unacceptable as offensive tropes like “self-hating Jew” or “House Negro”. For those of us who grew up under theocracy, these are not petty twitter squabbles. When the Iranian regime jailed me when I was 19 & pregnant, they also accused me of being against Islam

4-Mr. Mynett is obviously ignorant of history, but it was self-certain “progressives” like himself who hailed Ayatollah Khomeini as Gandhi 4 decades ago and dismissed criticism of him of as Islamophobic.

5-My generation of Iranians paid the price for this ignorance. I don’t want my son’s generation to pay the same price.        

nytimes.com/1979/02/16/arc…

6-I’d appreciate an apology from Mr Mynett. As someone born & raised in the comforts of the US, he has no idea what it feels like to be exiled, and be target of kidnapping & assassination by the regime ruling your homeland. Denouncing such a regime is patriotism, not Islamophobia

7-Finally, I repeat the same call I made to Rep Omar several years ago. If you cannot be an ally to me, a fellow Muslim woman of color, at least stop defaming me, through either your personal account or that of your husband.

https://twitter.com/AlinejadMasih/status/1215672479022223360?s=20&t=PA3OFyYXmWSWIedQONsGlg