Iran's Leader Spotlights Helyeh Doutaghi, Yale Scholar Fired After Jewish Onliner Exposed Her Terror Ties
Ayatollah Khamenei’s official media account on X posted several videos of Doutaghi, who was fired by Yale University in March after Jewish Onliner uncovered her membership in the Samidoun terror group
Over the last two days, the official media X account of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Imam Sayyid Ali Khamenei, posted several videos featuring Helyeh Doutaghi speaking at Iran’s November, 10, 2025 conference titled “We and the West: A Conference on the Views and Thoughts of Ayatollah Khamenei.”
Doutaghi, an Iranian-born former Yale Law School scholar who was terminated in March 2025 after Jewish Onliner exposed her membership in Samidoun, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, appeared prominently at the state-sponsored event designed to foster a global intellectual movement against Western democracy.
The conference took place at the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) International Conference Center with the presence of Ali Larijani, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. The event’s stated goal: to strengthen “multilateralism and the unity of independent countries” against what organizers call Western domination, while promoting Khamenei’s vision for confronting U.S. and European hegemony. The closing ceremony was attended by professors, researchers, and political and academic elites from around the world.
From Tehran to Yale to Tehran Again
Doutaghi’s fall from Yale came after Jewish Onliner revealed in early 2025 that she was a member of Samidoun, the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network. In October 2024, the U.S. Treasury Department designated Samidoun as a terrorist organization for operating as a fundraising arm for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), itself a designated terror group. Samidoun itself identified Doutaghi as a member of the international Samidoun Network in 2022.
Yale placed Doutaghi on administrative leave immediately after the revelations and terminated her position in March 2025 when she refused to cooperate with the university’s internal investigation.
Since then, Doutaghi has spoken at multiple international conferences that celebrate authoritarian governments.
On November 6-8, 2025, Helyeh was a featured speaker at an international conference hosted by the Observatory of Economic and Social Affairs (OSAE) titled “Development, War and Agriculture: The Agrarian Question in the Arab-Iranian Region.” Her presentation, “From Sanctions to Privatization: The Slow Structural Harms of the Iranian Sanctions Regime,” positioned Western sanctions as a form of imperialist aggression causing structural damage to Iran.
In July 2025, she appeared as a speaker at “Against Imperial Confusion: International Working-Class Solidarity with Iran,” a teach-in organized by the Black Alliance for Peace featuring Iranian labor organizers and aimed at building solidarity with Iran’s regime during the 12-day U.S.-Israeli military confrontation with Tehran. The event explicitly praised the resilience and critical role of the working class under Iran’s theocratic government.
Doutaghi was also listed as a speaker at the “People’s Summit for Korea” in New York City in July 2025 — a three-day conference at Riverside Church promoting North Korean regime narratives. The summit featured plenary sessions titled “The Long Revolution of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” and “Toward a United Front: U.S. Out of Everywhere.”
Academic Platforms for Propaganda
Beyond speaking engagements, Doutaghi has allegedly secured faculty positions at organizations that function as ideological arms of anti-Western movements. She serves as a faculty member at Progressive International’s “People’s Academy,” a Marxist educational platform.
The document articulates a program of revolutionary violence against Israel. Progressive International’s advisory council includes former U.K. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and is linked to Neville Roy Singham, a businessman with documented ties to the Chinese Communist Party who allegedly funds networks of anti-American activist organizations.
Doutaghi is also listed as a member of faculty at the Committee of Anti-Imperialists in Solidarity with Iran (CASI), an organization that explicitly supports Iran’s theocratic regime and opposes U.S. policy toward Tehran. She has taught courses for these organizations and published scholarly work that frames international law as a tool of U.S. imperialism.
