Op-ed: Iran Targets its Diaspora

As the Islamic Republic faces crisis at home, it seeks to assert tighter control over an increasingly vocal Iranian diaspora in the West.

Op-ed by Kasra Aarabi and Saeid Golkar. 

The Islamic Republic of Iran does not see repression as something confined to its own borders. Recently, the regime’s judiciary announced that it had begun confiscating the assets of members of the Iranian diaspora. This followed a statement issued by the Office of Iran’s Prosecutor General threatening the Iranian diaspora abroad with the confiscation of their property and other punishments, including possible execution, if they are found to have ‘cooperated with the enemy’. The statement defined such cooperation in very loose terms, including alleged ‘support’ for Israel, the United States, or other hostile actors. The warning signals the regime’s clear intention to escalate its transnational repression against the diaspora, exporting repression from Iran to western cities....