With an estimated 180 missiles fired from Iran at Israel, Iranian Princess Noor Pahlavi warned that Americans are not “untouchable,” cautioning that the United States is very much a target as far as the Iranian regime is concerned.
Joining host Jay Ruderman for the latest episode of his “All About Change” podcast, Pahlavi said of the Islamic Republic, “They’re the head of an octopus, and organizations like Hamas are the legs. And I want to say to Americans that you’re not untouchable. If you think you’ve not been affected by Iran, in some way you have.
“If things continue down this track with nobody supporting the Iranian people to stop them, being stripped of freedoms won’t just be an Iran problem, it’ll come right to your doorstep, because they view America as the devil, and they’ll do whatever they can to infiltrate it,” she said. “It started in Israel, it’s going to happen here. It’s already started on university campuses here and election meddling, and it will only get worse as they get emboldened as they approach a nuclear weapon.”
Pahlavi was born into the Iranian royal family as the eldest child of the crown prince. She heard the call to civic duty from an early age, inspired by the legacy of her grandfather, the last shah of Iran, along with her grandmother, the empress of Iran. But she was not content to sit on the sidelines, and she decided to use her place of privilege to be a voice for progressive change for the people of Iran.
Speaking to Ruderman, she discussed her distinctive path in continuing the legacy of her family through advocacy for a democratic Iran, how women are treated as second-class citizens in the country, and her advocacy for gender equality and better access to healthcare for women.
She decried Iran’s current leadership and its detrimental influence on the world stage, saying, “They’re in no way representative of Iran’s population. They represent their own pursuit of fundamentalist Islam, which they want to export and impose on the rest of the world, its proliferation both domestically and abroad, and they’re constantly preaching to this effect.”
Further, she asserted that the current government is an illegitimate one, as the elections in Iran are heavily controlled. “There’s a huge misconception here that this government has been democratically elected. Despite appearances of having elections, these are heavily controlled by the radical Islamic clerics and the supreme leader as holding the ultimate authority. Since 1979 through propaganda, through brutal force against its people, they have maintained their grip on power, and the elections are not free or fair.”
Pahlavi also condemned the state of women’s rights in the country.
“Women in Iran have no laws to protect them against gender-based violence. Their testimony in court is worth half of the man’s. They receive half of the inheritance of their male counterparts. The legal marriage age was lowered from I think between 15 and 18 to 9 after the revolution, and later raised to 13, but younger marriages are still allowed with a judge or father’s permission, and I think that it probably it was only raised to 13 because they realized 9-year-olds can’t produce children right away,” she argued. “Women need their husband or male guardian’s permission to travel or get a passport. Men have the unilateral right to divorce while women can face significant legal obstacles to do so.”
As such, the now exiled member of Iran’s royal family spoke about why using her platform to shed light on what’s happening now to women in Iran is so important to her.
“I want to be a megaphone for them since they’ve been systematically silenced,” she said. “Now that the situation in Iran has become so dire, what I care about is magnifying the voices of the people inside who are being oppressed. And I’m fortunate that it seems people see the stuff that I put out there, and I view it as a platform to broadcast the bravery of those still resisting a weapon against this regime that’s done nothing but try to smother and silence its people.”
She spoke about how her grandfather would be very disturbed to see what kind of country Iran has turned into today.
“I think it’s such a shame now because if he could see what Iran’s become, it’s the complete antithesis of what he had in mind. It’s now a passport you don’t want to have. It’s a country that’s feared and a country that shuts its people off, even if it involves cutting off internet access from anything that doesn’t align with its really rigid ideology.”
All About Change is hosted by Ruderman, president of the Boston-based Ruderman Family Foundation. Launched in 2018, the podcast shares stories of adversity where people have come out the other side ready to better themselves, their communities, and the world. Ultimately, it is a show about hope and activism.
The podcast is the 2024 winner of The Anthem Awards and a 2023 finalist for the Shorty Impact Awards. In the leading platforms that measure the reach of podcasts, All About Change has come in No. 23 in the country on the podcharts, and has ranked No. 18 in Apple’s U.S. podcast charts and #3 in society and culture, while also being featured as one of the new and noteworthy podcasts by Apple.
To listen to the full All About Change episode with Princess Noor, visit: All About Change|Princess Noor Pahlavi. For more, visit: allaboutchangepodcast.com. To access All About Change on Apple Podcasts, visit: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/all-about-change/id1438241896
