Azadeh Pourzand is an independent human rights researcher and executive director of the Siamak Pourzand Foundation, which is dedicated to promoting freedom of expression.
Kelly Shannon is a historian of U.S. foreign relations and a visiting scholar with the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University.
Articles & Testimony
As nuclear talks proceed, the president should recall his past acknowledgement that respect for human rights and democracy is “an integral component of U.S. national security.”
When the Islamic Republic of Iran marked its 46th anniversary in February, protests erupted in the remote southwestern city of Dehdasht. Iranians chanted anti-regime slogans and held signs reading, “From Dehdasht to Tehran, unity, unity.” The demonstrations were part of a national movement that has been simmering since 2022, after the killing of a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, prompted tens of thousands to take to the streets to seek justice and demand freedom. The Woman, Life, Freedom uprising has continued through rooftop chants, daily defiance of the regime’s hijab law and sporadic, smaller protests across the country. In Washington, the Trump administration has reinstated a maximum pressure policy designed to stop Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon and counter its influence abroad. But so far, the administration has conspicuously omitted a critical issue for Iranians: human rights. It’s a stark departure from Trump’s first-term agenda, which condemned violations in Iran and framed human rights as a fundamental component of its foreign policy vision...
