Iranian-Born Activist Says She Left Pro-Palestine Movement After Allies Dismissed Iranian Women’s Freedom

Summary

Iranian-born activist Parishad Kavyani said she left the pro-Palestine movement after former allies dismissed Iranian women’s freedom and some supporters posted pro-IRGC material.
Canada listed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist entity on June 19, 2024.
UN fact-finders reported in March 2026 that Iran’s mandatory-hijab framework allows arrest, detention and criminal prosecution.

What Happened

Parishad Kavyani said activists she marched beside for a free Palestine stayed quiet when Iranian women demanded freedom over their clothing, then supported the regime restricting them. Her charge is selective solidarity: women’s rights mattered until the abuser was Iran.

In an October 31 Fox News Digital interview, the Iranian-born Canadian said she had faced homophobia, racism and sexism from leftists, including people she had marched with for more than two years. Fox reported that she split with the movement after supporters began posting material backing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC.

Kavyani moved to Canada at 14. She described growing up with official propaganda about helping Palestinians while seeing deprivation inside Iran.

Fox described the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack as another tipping point. Kavyani rejected killing or taking civilians hostage because they were Israeli and said she began distancing herself from the coalition. She accused parts of it of ranking whose lives deserved protection.

The IRGC reference carries weight beyond an activist dispute. Canada listed the force as a terrorist entity on June 19, 2024, citing reasonable grounds to believe it had carried out or supported terrorist activity.

Why It Matters

Anyone campaigning for civilian protection owes victims the same standard regardless of who harms them. If Kavyani’s account is accurate, former allies abandoned that duty when Iranian women’s freedom became politically inconvenient. The women lose support, and a movement asking the public to trust its moral judgment weakens its own case.

The Bigger Picture

Iran’s restrictions on women are documented independently of Kavyani’s testimony. In its March 2026 report, the United Nations fact-finding mission said the mandatory-hijab framework continued to allow arrest, detention and criminal prosecution. It described harassment, street beatings and vehicles impounded over alleged noncompliance.

Those findings establish the repression behind her criticism. They do not establish how common support for it is among pro-Palestine activists. The Fox account does not identify the alleged abusers or reproduce the pro-IRGC posts, preventing a direct check of those allegations or a response from specific people. Her testimony supports scrutiny of the conduct she describes, not a verdict on an entire movement. Her criticism draws on her childhood and her account of the activists she encountered, rather than evidence about every organization supporting Palestinians. The Canadian listing does not independently verify which activists shared the material Kavyani described.

Iranian-born Canadian activist Parishad Kavyani, who spent more than two years marching in support of Palestine, has publicly broken with the movement, accusing former allies of hypocrisy, discrimination and selectively defending human rights.

Kavyani said she had experienced… pic.twitter.com/hUvRWArsqN
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) November 4, 2026