The Persecution Of A Persian Tiger Mother

Parvin Mokhtare was just doing what any other mom would do when she took to the airwaves of Radio Farda (RFE/RL’s Persian-language service) to protest the arrest of her son, journalist and human rights activist Kouhyar Goudarzi, who has been imprisoned off and on by the Iranian government for years. Mokhtare was her son’s fiercest advocate, conducting numerous interviews with media outlets in Iran and writing to human rights groups abroad to publicize her son’s case and secure his release.

Despite the fact that journalists and human rights activists are routinely targeted and  imprisoned by Iranian authorities, legal action against family members is highly unusual, even for Iran’s revolutionary courts. Nevertheless, it isn’t unheard of for authorities to briefly jail family members for speaking up about their loved ones.