Moloud Hajizadeh

Moloud Hajizadeh is an Iranian journalist and women’s rights activist. She holds a Bachelor of Economics and Masters of International Relations. Her journalism work focused on political economy and women’s rights has led her to be persecuted and arrested multiple times. 

Hajizadeh has worked as a journalist since 2004 mostly covering the field of political economy in the newspapers Etemad, Bahar, Donya-e-Eqtsad; the magazines Mehrnameh and Seda; and for the news agencies ILNA and CHN, among others. She has led journalism courses in Iran, as well as at the Kateb University in Kabul, Afghanistan. She currently works as a freelance journalist for the Persian section of the UK newspaper, The Independent. 

Additionally, Hajizadeh has worked for over ten years with several women’s organizations, focused on issues of access to education, gender-based violence, and organizing training courses for immigrant women. Organizations where Hajizadeh worked include Khaneh Khorshid, or Sun House, and the Domestic Violence Campaign. 

In 2019, Hajizadeh’s home was raided multiple times, her belongings confiscated and destroyed and she was unofficially blacklisted when applying for new employment. Finally, she was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for charges of “propaganda against the state” and “disturbance of public opinion.” She was released on bail, but was sentenced to do forced labor at a convalescence home for former revolutionary guards. She was arrested again in 2021 and sentenced to more than 3 years in prison. 

In 2021, Hajizadeh was welcomed as an ICORN writer in residence in the Norwegian city of Larvik. From the safety of her residency, she continues to write about the challenges women living in Iran face and the pervasive repression of activist and civil society.

To learn more about Hajizadeh’s current work, you can follow her on Instagram and Twitter at @HajizadehMoloud.