Rouzbeh Parsi writes about the allegations against him
September 2022. A young Iranian woman, Jina Mahsa AminiArrest in Tehran because he had not “correctly” worn his veil and dies in the police repository. The news leads to large protests everywhere in Iran – many believe it is a revolution. The Express asks me to write an analysis and I point out that the willingness of the Iranian state to use brutal violence is in no way exhausted – the chance that the protests can lead to a revolution is extremely small.
The reaction from parts of the Diaspora is immediately and is soon supported by Swedish politicians in all colors. The Institute for Foreign Policy, where I work, Can receive thousands of identical messages with the requirement that I have to be fired. During a conversation that I organize about Iran in the Mediterranean Museum, demonstrators carry the board with nid photos of me and my brother, Trita Parsi. I am threatened with death and have to apply for a protected identity.
2013 was The relationships between Iran and the United States are about to improve. The criticism of this cherry was loud, not only from conservative voices in Iran: there were both American and Israeli new conservative troops that screamed after an attack war against Iran. The experience of the war in Iraq, with political disintegration, terror and a suffering civilian population, did not tore. The demands for war found support in Exili circles, which meant that a war led by the US would pave the way for the return of the Pahlavi dynynasty. The old monarchy was probably so authoritarian and repressive, but the Islamic Republic has been more bloody thirsty. The monarchists hope that this fact and the shine of nostalgia hide the skin of the old system.
The interest in what was going on during the nuclear negotiations and how actors in Iran intended to develop relationships with the Western world, were currently great in the EU, but it was difficult to have diplomatic relations with the country. The research network that I and other leading Irankannas started in 2013 were intended to open more channels to Iran with support from various European institutions, to give the forces that better relationships wanted with the Western world Rye in the back. We were convinced that a war would have devastating consequences for the population of the country and its future political development and therefore wanted to contribute to the debate on whether an agreement was a good and realistic way. In 2015, the United States signed an agreement with Iran, with the EU as host and the UN Security Council and Germany in the back, which brought clear restrictions on the core program.
Ten years later Iran Iran International says they have received leaked e-mail from the Iranian Foreign Ministry. The leaked e -mails would prove that our meetings with the Iranian representatives were part of a secret network ruled from Tehran. Iran International is based on a collection of e -mails in which Iranian officials perform on their superiors about what they have achieved. They don’t mention our Projects were funded by uncomfortable players, first German Heinrich Böll Stiftung (2013-2015) and then British Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2018-2020).
Instead, this temporary constellation is described by researchers and analysts with an Iranian background in the Western world in sensational terms as a secret organization that controls the European Iran politics. This is the newspaper tank TV4 re -design in January, without my own excavation and without source criticism, that I am part of a “impact operation”.
In March 2022 I am called an expert witness at Hamid Nourys Process in Stockholm, where he is accused of approving executions of thousands of political prisoners in Iran in 1988. My description of the opposition group, Mujahedin, who lost the most members of the executions, receives criticism from the group’s lawyer. I am supported by the chairman of the committee, but what happens still has consequences. I am now becoming even more a target for the supporters of Mujahedin in Sweden.
After the events of 2022, Iran became a projection area for conservative forces in the West and monarchists in the Iranian diaspora have poor with Sweden Democrats addicted, not least on the Bulletin site. During these years the conspiracy theories are spread over me and my brother in social media. When no media picks up the allegations of TV4, the SD calls on the case in the Riksdag’s Committee of Foreign Affairs, supported by a number of social -democrats. The Minister of Foreign Affairs requires an investigation into ME and the Executive Board of the UI takes place.
At my workplace Know everyone I am investigated, but there is nothing we have to talk about. I am placed in the freezer box of UI – where Iran and Gaza are already sitting, waiting for “better times” – and may not appear in public. My family and I wait for the investigation for two months. I choose to cooperate in all possible ways, the researchers get all the documents about the association, onion gives them access to all my e-mail (I know afterwards), and they interview more than 60 people.
Finally, a 45 -page report comes that freed me from the accusation: “In our research we did not find any support for the claim that Rouzbeh Parsi would have been part of one of the Iran -Occed impact campaign”.
However, it contains new claims.
I must have brought the management of UI into the association, whose analysis of the 2013-15 negotiations have contributed to the eligible for the job as a program manager at UI. The association was mentioned in my resume and we held a seminar with the cooperation of the user interface the months before I registered the job. That the association has no longer worked with Iran since 2020 because of the development where the researchers are not interested.
The researchers believe that I have too much power about the public conversation, without giving my critics in the Iranian diaspora access to this conversation. I am always just as surprised by this media logic and my alleged force. They don’t mention that some of these Exiliarania regularly call me blood washer and regime agent and never felt forced to present proof of this. Nobody asks the Iran commentator of TV4 Arvin KoshnoodStudy advisor at Lund University, which are his own political views – although he repeatedly spreads conspiracy theories over me.
So all Iranians in Sweden are held hostage for this so -driven opposition and my hope of a democratic future in Iran is shrinking even more.
When the research lands On the table of the board, the discussion starts about what to do with the report that they realize themselves, a tendentious collection that does not violate me but also onion. The board itself has a hard time supporting the entire report that they ordered and paid. Eventually they decide that I have to stop and start the negotiations. Want to support colleagues, but how can they do it? I can’t talk.
A few times when I cross the bridge to Skeppsholmen these weeks, the steps are too long and the music in my ears are too quiet. There, at those moments, the Swedish grinding passive -saturated witch hunt becomes too much. In the gap of silence, I fail to stay away from darkness by being busy, it is too lonely and quiet.
That the same disk, with the same structure and signs, is focused internationally and by the same actors on many Iran experts, does not appear in the research of the onion or Swedish media. I was told that I was provoked, not nuanced and I did not clearly speak that Iran is a terrible and repressive regime.
So it’s, Iran is a terrible and repressive regime, I read and teach about this fact, but moral convictions are not an analysis.
When the researchers point out that “some” think that I was not hard enough against the Islamic Republic in my testimony in the Noury process, I start to realize that this is a Kafka process. My employer has put this in the roles, but does not want to be felt by the process, because UI is terrified of media driving and the pressure of politicians from various parliamentary parties.
So tell me, where do we see the impact operation?
The art of destroying art
31:26
