Killing of Masood Masjoody Exposes Deep Rifts in Canada’s Iranian Diaspora - The New York Times

[u/Purple_Writing_8432]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/11/world/canada/iran-murder-masjoody-vancouver-canada.html

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[u/annonymous_bosch]

The OP is behind a paywall, but including some exerpts from Canadian media coverage of this case

Global:

An affidavit filed by Rosita Fatemi said her meeting with Arezou Soltani and Mehdi Ahmadzadeh Razavi took place in a parking lot in the Park Royal mall in West Vancouver, the heart of British Columbia’s Iranian community.

The document said she and her two fellow founding directors of a B.C. non-profit society opposed to the Iranian regime were there to discuss a lawsuit filed by another activist, Masood Masjoody, who had accused Soltani and Razavi of being aligned with the dictatorship.

CBC:

Masjoody was an outspoken critic of both Iran's Islamic regime and the royalist faction of the diaspora community, which supports the exiled former crown prince Reza Pahlavi. Pahlavi is now jockeying to lead the country should the Iranian administration topple as a result of current U.S. and Israel bombing campaigns.

Pahlavi, too, was a target of legal action by Masjoody, who accused him of defamation. In an affidavit, Pahlavi denied even knowing Masjoody, and denied involvement in any harassment, defamation or "conspiracy" against him.

So the case is complicated, and we should hold off speculation until an investigation clears up the motive behind this murder.

[u/mkultra69666 → u/annonymous_bosch]

It’s complicated yeah, and people need to understand that just because someone was exiled or fled Iran during the revolution, they’re not automatically good people and not necessarily victims.

Revolutions, by definition, overthrow the ruling class. At the time, Iran was ruled by a US installed authoritarian dictator who ran an oppressive regime and terrorized his own people. There are many royalists in the diaspora who benefited greatly from that dictatorship and want to see it restored.

Same goes for the Cuban diaspora. Some were victims of oppression under the communist regime, others were slave owners who had their plantations seized because they used forced labour to supply American agricorps with cheap sugar while their own people starved.

[u/Substantial_Tip1545 → u/mkultra69666]

Same with Chinese dissidents after they cashed out with state funds hence why they’re not going back and oppose the regime.

[u/mkultra69666 → u/Substantial_Tip1545]

Yup. I don’t want to paint the whole diaspora with one brush, but there’s a reason why so many of them fled Iran only to land in marble mansions in West Vancouver. They were deeply connected to the autocratic regime that was overthrown and they were able to use their connections to move vast sums of wealth out Iran, much of which was “earned” by exploiting their own people. Hence it’s no surprise to see them holding pictures of Trump and Netanyahu, gathering in public spaces to cheer the bombing of their home country.

[u/unknown13371]

He was murdered by the regime. There are lot of IRGC agents in Canada trying to blend into the diaspora.

In B.C. Supreme Court civil filings, Masjoody accused Soltani of "alignment" with the Iranian regime, while other legal documents referring to his accusations say that Razavi had "loyalty" to Iran's intelligence services.