Former University of Arkansas Professor Shirin Saiedi Vows to Go After Critics ‘With an Army’

A disgraced Pro-Iran professor is vowing to go after the anti-regime activist who exposed her “with an army,” landing her under FBI investigation, The Post has learned.

Former University of Arkansas professor Shirin Saiedi blames the end of her career in the US on Lawdan Bazargan, whose Alliance Against Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists (AAIRIA) helped expose alleged plagiarism in her academic work and her support for the Iranian regime.

“Lawdan Bazargan, you are absolutely finished,” Saeidi says in a Persian-language post on X last month, verified as accurate by The Post. “I am coming after you with an army … Lawdan, we will do something to you that will be recorded in history.”

In addition, Saeidi allegedly threatened to find the grave of Bazargan’s brother in Iran, and “dance” on it. The brother, Bijan Bazargan, was executed by the Islamic Republic in a 1988 massacre of political prisoners.

In 2025, Saiedi submitted a letter on University of Arkansas stationery supporting Hamid Nouri, a former Iranian prison official who was convicted in Sweden for his role in the ‘88 massacre.

AAIRIA also urged Cambridge University to investigate her PhD thesis, written while studying at the UK university. AAIRIA activists accuse Saiedi of fabricating interviews with female victims of the Iranian regime and other alleged ethical breaches.

“Saeidi has talked about ‘coming after’ me with an ‘army’, ‘erasing’ us and doing something to me that will ‘go down in history.’ Since she began targeting me publicly, I have also received threatening messages from strangers…I feel genuinely unsafe,” Bazargan said, regarding the threats.

In an August 28 letter to the FBI, Bazargan also said she was worried the regime would target her using “third-party criminals or organized-crime networks” to target dissidents.

In a recent social media post, Saeidi admitted Cambridge University was investigating her work, calling the probe a “smear and hate campaign.”

“We are currently in the process of filing a complaint about that,” she said in a video posted to Instagram on August 14. “The pressure on the University of Cambridge has resulted in them opening an investigation into my PhD, even though I submitted plenty of documentation a year ago that the accusations were fraudulent.”

In the video, she compared herself to British professor Jason Arday, who also held a position at Cambridge and took his own life after the school began investigating allegations he plagiarized his PhD thesis.

Saiedi did not return a request for comment this week. A GoFundMe campaign has raised more than $15,000 for her.

Published originally on September 3, 2026, under the title “Pro-Iran Prof Vows to Go After Critics ‘With an Army’ for Exposing Her — As Her Work Is Scrutinized for Plagiarism.”