Israel’s 12-day war against Iran decimated the Islamic Republic’s military machine and security services. But as word of a ceasefire spread among the country’s dissident political activists, many of whom live in hiding, fear began to grow, not hope.
Masih Alinejad, an Iranian American journalist who lives in New York and is a leading campaigner against Tehran’s theocracy, received a flood of messages from political allies warning of a bloody crackdown. “I just want to speak to President Trump directly,” said one young man, his face obscured by a hat and balaclava and his voice intentionally distorted, in a video sent to Alinejad on June 23. “The Islamic Republic will obliterate us after the ceasefire. They will kill every one of us, every one of us, anyone who opposes the regime.”
More than a dozen Iranian dissidents and human rights leaders told The Free Press that a major clampdown by the regime on its political opponents—real and imagined—is underway. The targets include suspected internal spies accused of collaborating with the Israelis, as well as democracy activists and ethnic and religious minorities viewed as disloyal to the Islamic Republic, such as Kurds, Afghans, Jews, and Baha’is. Representatives of the Iranian human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi voiced fears last week that she could be returned to prison.
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Author: Jay Solomon
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