How to get Iran to improve its human rights
The arrest of another Iranian-American dramatizes efforts by Iran’s security establishment to undercut President Hassan Rouhani but also jeopardizes economic gains from the nuclear agreement.
As Iran begins implementing a landmark nuclear deal, hard-liners opposed to the government of President Hassan Rouhani are continuing a domestic political crackdown and jeopardizing a wider opening to the United States and the Iranian diaspora.
Reports that the Intelligence Ministry of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has seized a fourth Iranian-American — United Arab Emirates-based businessman Siamak Namazi — came as Ahmed Shaheed, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, issued a new report documenting Iran’s extensive use of the death penalty, continued crackdown on the press and civil society and discrimination against women and ethnic and religious minorities.
