International Affairs Analyst · Iran-China Relations · Authoritarian Governance

Ghazal Vaisi is an international affairs analyst and journalist covering Iran, China, and the axis of autocracy: the deepening cooperation between authoritarian states, and what it costs the people who live under them. She served as United Nations Correspondent for The Independent Persian, briefed staff at the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, and works with fellow journalists to document the human cost of the Islamic Republic's crackdowns. Her research has been cited by The Heritage Foundation, the RAND Corporation, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and the U.S. Department of Defense's Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, and her analysis has been published in English, Persian, Arabic, and Bulgarian.

From a Newsroom in Iran

Born in Iran to two journalists, Vaisi grew up inside the newsroom. She witnessed the machinery of state censorship firsthand when her parents' work made them targets of persecution, forcing the family into exile in 2009.

Her work since has focused on how authoritarian systems hold power, increasingly through economic leverage and technology rather than force alone.

Reporting from the United Nations

From 2022 to 2023, Vaisi served as United Nations Correspondent for The Independent Persian, reporting from New York on the Security Council, the General Assembly, and the Economic and Social Council. Her reporting centered on the Islamic Republic at the UN: its human rights record, the execution of protesters, and its arms transfers to Russia. She questioned ambassadors, visiting experts, and UN officials at the daily briefings, including those held by Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesperson for the Secretary-General.

When Iranians took to the streets in the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising, Vaisi covered it from UN Headquarters. She pressed the Secretary-General's office to address the Islamic Republic's killings and executions, before the movement and during it. The answers went on the record, documenting what the UN was and was not prepared to do. The same erasure of women's rights was underway in Afghanistan. In January 2023, as the Taliban barred women from work and education, she interviewed Naseer Ahmad Faiq, Afghanistan's chargé d'affaires to the UN. The exchanges are collected under Interviews.

Documenting the Cost

Vaisi has spent years working on the strategy behind a Persian-language political analysis channel that reaches viewers inside Iran and across the diaspora. When the January 2026 uprising was met with mass killings and the authorities cut internet access, the true toll became one of the central unanswered questions, with estimates running from several thousand into the tens of thousands. She joined the effort to document those killed by the regime's forces and its militias, working with fellow journalists, witnesses, and grieving families to collect and verify their names. The names are still being read aloud and archived publicly on the channel, so that those killed demanding an end to the regime cannot be erased from the record.

Publications

Her analysis has been published by the Middle East Institute, the Asia Society Policy Institute, BBC Persian, Iran International, Inter Press Service, and The Independent Persian.

Policy Impact & Recognition

Full citation record on the Publications page.