A thread: I have so much to say about this, so please get ready. 1/x https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2020/10/14/fdd-emerges-as-hub-for-online-harassment-against-critics-of-trumps-state-department/

2/x Last year, as a graduate student at GWU I had to write an op-ed and publish it. Naturally I went for the Elliott School’s publication platform for graduate students The International Affairs Review.

3/x I submitted my article and I went through a week-long editing process with three different editors, all of whom I was introduced to professionally in an email. On the day that they were supposed to publish my op-ed, and everything was set to go a random “editor”...

4/x popped into the google doc and tore my op-ed to pieces. I had never been introduced to him.
I would like to disclose that I have no problem with IAR and their work, and I think it’s great that they have provided a platform for graduate students to publish.

5/x My op-ed was about how the United States should return to JCPOA and how the Maximum Pressure policy isn’t working. The “editor” (for the purposes of this thread I’m just going to refer to him as the “editor”) was another graduate student at the Elliott School, studying...

6/x security policy. I went back to his comments and “edits” in the google doc. All of them were comments contradicting my argument that the JCPOA was working and he was saying that my sources were not reliable and were “fake news”.

7/x He also mentioned that I need to write about both sides of the Iranian issue and say that maximum pressure has been effective in order for my op-ed to be stronger. I reiterated that this is an opinion piece and that my op-ed and opinion is that maximum pressure has NOT been..

8/x effective and that my piece is strong as is. Also, I mentioned that he is not an editor for this piece and can’t really tell me what to do. One of my friends looked him up and lo and behold, he was working at FDD.

9/x Turns out he was also an editor for IAR (even though we were never introduced) and the editor-in-chief didn’t do anything. I complained to a lot of people and all of my professors said that I should raise the issue with either the Dean or the Hatchet (the school newspaper).

10/10 FDD talks a lot about how the Iranian regime is suppressive and harasses its people. But I mean all I have to say is, it’s the pot calling the kettle black

1/2 example of comment: ""In what domains? It is unclear that if all parties rejoin JCPOA it will resolve lingering issues Iran is implicated in- militia forces in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, cyber-attacks, American election interference, delivery systems, missile proliferation, etc."

2/2 Me: "The JCPOA was about nuclear proliferation, sir."

btw, they didn't publish my piece claiming I refused to accept their edits. (I had accepted all of the edits from the three editors I was introduced to and was working with for an entire week).

Okay so since everyone has been suggestingI publish the piece, I did actually end up publishing it in Dec 2019. Here>> https://intpolicydigest.org/2019/12/13/return-to-the-jcpoa/

This isn't the best thing I've written and it was for a 1 credit skills course, publishing it meant I was guaranteed an A in the course. hence why I went for IAR, and not a major think tank or outlet. Also 1M things have happened since December 2019 so this article is outdated.

The point is, it doesn't matter what I wrote. The main thing is that I was censored in a country where I have the right of speech & expression by an organization that preaches about suppression but is a suppressor itself.

I appreciate all of the supportive and encouraging messages and comments people have left me. They all really made me feel so much better and heard/seen. I might rewrite this and publish a better version and talk about how I was silenced.

I will not, however, be naming any names because it goes against my morals and values. By doing so I will indirectly encourage harassment toward the person who did this and sharing this entire experience/thread will then be pointless.

Okay...I don’t have access to the google doc anymore (lol, of course I don’t) BUT google doc sent me an email last year of some of the comments and I have those. You’ll see how accepting I was of the IAR edits and how not accepting I was to FDD guy edits.

These are for those lovely people who are pressed on not believing me. And those who believe me and should, also, know

Sorry I forgot to warn before posting the comments above: beware, lots of mansplaining going on in those comments.

I’m so sorry everyone this is the last thing I’ll say and then I’ll leave this to age on twitter. I was in the middle or posting these when twitter went down earlier. Promise this is the last of it.

Continued...

And then they sent me this and proceeded to do absolutely nothing.