[2] She left Iran in 2005[4] and currently resides in the United States, where she serves as the CEO and co-founder of the 501(c)(3) organization Nonviolent Initiative for Democracy (NID).
[5] Haghighatjoo was born in 1968 in southern Tehran,[3] the second of four daughters, and comes from a traditionalist middle-class family.
[2] Haghighatjoo worked for Mohammad Khatami's presidential campaign, and joined Mosharekat party as a student leader.
[3] On 23 February 2004, she resigned from the parliament on the grounds that she is no longer able to keep her oath of office and as a sign of protest to "the incorrect, illegal and non-religious conduct of the appointed bodies [e.g. the Guardian Council and Judiciary] in recent years".
She told The Boston Globe in 2009 that she entered Parliament believing Islam and democracy could coexist; she left office believing in “separation of mosque and state.’’[4] Haghighatjoo married a parliamentary correspondent, when she was 31 and serving her second year as a lawmaker.