Helyeh Doutaghi case and lack of freedom of speech in West
On Friday, March 28, Dr. Helyeh Doutaghi, a prominent Iranian scholar and Deputy Director of the Law and Political Economy (LPE) group at Yale Law School (YLS), was dismissed from her position. Yale’s decision followed a smear campaign led by a Zionist-aligned media outlet, which utilized AI-generated fabrications and Yale’s employment of a pro-Israel legal advisor and military contractors.
In a public statement, Dr. Doutaghi rejected the accusations, asserting that engaging with such processes will legitimize the Zionist child-killing forces and would undermine the principles of due process. She maintains that her termination resulted directly from her academic work critiquing U.S. sanctions on Iran, her unwavering condemnation of the genocide in Gaza, and her advocacy for Palestinian rights.
Dr. Doutaghi’s removal occurs amid an unprecedented U.S. government crackdown targeting scholars, students, and activists who oppose genocide and advocate for peace, both on campuses and in public spaces. Her Iranian identity has further compounded this repression, as the U.S. and its allies escalate warmongering policies and economic sanctions against Iran while silencing dissent.
The dismissal of an academic solely for expressing political views exposes the hypocrisy of Western claims to democracy, free speech, and the right to protest. Academic repression and the systemic erasure of dissenting voices are tools to entrench hegemonic narratives and uphold imperialist educational structures.
As Dr. Doutaghi has highlighted, we are witnessing a resurgence of Zionist-inflected McCarthyism in the U.S., aimed at stifling criticism of Israel. This new wave of ideological purges, career blacklisting, and performative condemnations mirrors the Cold War-era tactics of the 1950s, now repackaged under a 21st-century imperialist-Zionist agenda.
In this climate, resistance to the imperialist-Zionist suppression of free thought and dissent is not optional—it is a moral imperative for all justice-seeking people worldwide. As Iran’s Leader emphasized in his Eid al-Fitr address, the Zionist regime in West Asia acts as a colonial proxy for Western powers, sustaining their machinery of violence and oppression.
We, the undersigned, condemn Yale University’s decision to terminate Dr. Helyeh Doutaghi as part of a coordinated effort to silence voices opposing genocide and U.S. imperialist policies. We demand the immediate retraction of all unsubstantiated charges against Dr. Doutaghi in the United States and a formal apology from Yale University and compensation for damages inflicted on Dr. Doutaghi. Moreover, we call for an end to the intimidation of academics and activists in Western institutions across the U.S., Europe, and Canada.
These attacks aim to terrorize and silence the countless advocates who have courageously amplified Palestinian resistance and the call for freedom. We urge academic, student, and political movements worldwide who stood firm against imperialist-Zionist coercion, to raise their voices about the genocide and defend the Palestinian right to resist.
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