neighboring Turkey for a "family reunion," so that agents could supposedly "just talk" to her. Her brother warned her it was a trap. In 2018, Alinejad's sister and niece were forced to go on a prime-time television programme to say that the family was disgraced by Alinejad's behavior, and that their parents have disowned her. Alinejad responded that her family was forced to say such things by the authorities, a common tactic employed by the Iranian government aimed at discrediting dissidents. She wrote in a New York Times Op-ed published two weeks later: "The truth is that before the show aired, I got a call from my mother – a tiny, illiterate woman who has the toughness that comes from being abandoned at an early age by her own mother and married off at 14 years old. She was sobbing. The intelligence service had tried to pressure her and my father to participate in the show. And the local Friday prayer leader had called them out in public and urged them to cooperate. She refused – a show of loyalty that I can never repay." As did her brother Alireza, imprisoned after Intelligence agents raided his home and blindfolded and handcuffed him in front of his two small children, and dragged him away. He was sentenced to eight years, and remains in prison. Iranian government smear campaign By this point, Iranian authorities had been conducting a concerted smear campaign against Alinejad for a decade. Even going to such extremes as doctoring photos to make it look like she engaged in sexually provocative behavior, and showing them to her elderly, poorly-educated father. She told The Guardian in 2013 that her father had refused to speak to her for three years as a result. Iranian state-run media have run numerous fabricated stories, such as her being an MI6 agent serving directly under then-Queen Elizabeth II, false quotes attributed to her saying such things as "to be a journalist in Western countries, it is compulsory that you also work for the spy agencies", that she is a drug addict, and that she was a victim of rape on the London subway. Kidnapping plot In July 2021, the US Department of Justice claimed that four Iranian intelligence officials and a fifth assistant were planning to kidnap a New York-based journalist critical of Iran, as well as four further people in Canada and the UK.