New York City, United States – Roughly 12,200 kilometres, or 7,600 miles, separate businessman and activist Roozbeh Farahanipour from his native Iran. But even that distance is not enough for the 54-year-old to feel completely safe.
Since 2000, Farahanipour has lived in exile in the United States, having fled a death sentence in Iran. He left behind Marz-e Por Gohar, the Iranian opposition party he founded.
But escaping Iran has not meant he escaped the threats he faced. After resettling in the Los Angeles area, Farahanipour remembers there was one seven-month period when it seemed like his car tyres were slashed every few weeks.
Then there was another incident in 2022, when he called on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to condemn Iran’s violent crackdown on protesters.
Farahanipour later learned that, during his testimony, gunfire had shattered the door of one of his restaurants, the Persian Gulf cafe. He suspects both cases had to do with his activism.
“You can sleep with one eye open, one eye closed, and you feel like you are not safe,” Farahanipour said. But, he added, it’s the same in Iran. “That’s 90 million people in Iran [who are] not safe.”
Still, Iranian dissidents in the US are facing new uncertainties since the country joined Israel in a war against Iran on February 28.
Some fear the heightened tensions with Iran might compromise their safety in the US. Others worry the war might lead to hostile attitudes towards immigrants and Iranian Americans, who make up the largest Iranian diaspora community in the world, with a population of more than 413,000.
Negar Razavi, a scholar at Princeton University’s Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies, described the sentiment among dissidents as an atmosphere of “dual fear”.
“There is a sense that nowhere is really safe for them,” she told Al Jazeera. “They’re neither safe here, nor are they safe back home.”
Even in the US, there are no guarantees of sanctuary, according to Razavi. She pointed out that, as recently as January, the administration of US President Donald Trump deported a group of Iranians back to Iran, despite concerns they may face persecution.
It was the third such flight, following a September deportation that included approximately 120 people and a December expulsion involving more than 50.
“The fact that the Trump administration has deported over a hundred Iranians, most of them refugees and asylum seekers, has made a lot of people scared,” Razavi said.