Op-ed: When Civilian Space Becomes a Security Weapon

Op-ed by Jason Brodsky and Saeid Golkar

In Iran, ambulances are no longer always trusted, especially in times of crisis. During protests, people have watched emergency vehicles move through streets not to rescue the injured, but allegedly to transport security forces, arrest demonstrators, or move detainees. This image says something larger about the Islamic Republic. The regime does not only repress society from outside, but enters civilian life, uses its institutions, borrows its vehicles, hides behind its buildings—and then presents itself as the victim when those same spaces are caught in the consequences of conflict....