Iran's political winds are shifting
LA Times
17-Jan-2010

In late December, I received a New Year's e-mail from a former Iranian
diplomat. The contact surprised me. I had known the man when I lived in
Tehran from 2004 to '07, but I hadn't heard from him in more than two
years. In 2007, as the Ahmadinejad administration began tarring its
ideological enemies as foreign stooges, he cut relations with me.

I
hadn't become less of a liability in the interim. In 2009, during the
postelection unrest, I was arrested at Tehran's airport as I was
boarding a flight and transferred to Evin Prison. Though the Greek
government intervened to obtain my prompt release, others were less
fortunate. A government-issued indictment accused many green movement
sympathizers of being pawns of America, Israel or Britain and seeking
to execute a velvet revolution. Most were sentenced to long prison
terms or execution.

Things were so bad, I doubted I would be
hearing from my estranged friend, particularly because the government
had stepped up its monitoring of electronic communications. But then
his season's greeting arrived, and I wasn't the only recipient. Some
even more radioactive addressees were openly listed in the e-mail. One
of them was a high-profile prisoner in Evin Prison, tried and found
guilty on a charge of espionage. Another was an American academic whose
name came up in a show-trial indictment as an intelligence ag... >>>

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