Yale Law School has put Helyeh Doutaghi, an Associate Research Scholar, on "immediate administrative leave" shortly after learning about her alleged ties to a terrorist group. The Samidoun Network is designated as a terrorist group by the US, Canada, and Israel and has been banned by Germany and the Dutch parliament.
Doutaghi, an Iranian national, took part in a virtual meeting with Saeed Jalili, an Iranian regime official who serves as the “Supreme Leader’s representative to the Supreme National Security Council’s Secretariat,” according to media reports.During that meeting, she expressed satisfaction over the West’s failure to deal with internal conflicts and lauded the international courts for achievements “for the benefit of Iran.”
Doutaghi also serves as an official at the Committee of Anti-Imperialists in Solidarity with Iran (CASI), an organization that strives to cancel Western sanctions against Iran, the reports said.She was also listed as a “guest author” on the website of West Point Military Academy’s Lieber Institute, but her name was removed from an article she co-authored, and her author page was removed.Doutaghi’s academic work, which she had conducted in academic programs in Canada and the US, revolved around criticism of US sanctions against Iran.She was described by Samidoun, designated as a “sham charity” for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), as a member of its international network. In 2022, she spoke online at an event led by Samidoun in Iran and its coordinator, Elham Abedini.
The event featured a screening of a film that lauded Georges Abdullah, a PFLP terrorist who was charged in France for the assassination of American and Israeli diplomats in the 1980s.Doutaghi has expressed antisemitic views on several occasions. Last year in a podcast interview, for instance, she implied that “Zionists” control the government and higher education institutions in the US.During an interview with an Italian outlet, she said the Mossad was behind a series of ISIS suicide bombings that took the lives of hundreds.
According to an article in “The Jewish Onliner,” Doutaghi appeared on Iranian regime-owned Press TV, an outlet that has been placed under US sanctions. She has lauded Hamas and Hezbollah and expressed support for terrorism on her X account. The account became private within a few days after the exposé.'Zionists control the US government'
In an email to the Yale newspaper The Buckley Beacon, Alden Ferro, senior associate director of public affairs at Yale Law School, wrote: “These allegations are taken extremely seriously and we promptly initiated an investigation to determine the facts.”Doutaghi’s “short-term position as an associate research scholar with the LPE Project ends next month,” a role she has held since September 2023, he wrote.