Hamid Yazdan Panah is an attorney focused on asylum and immigration in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is also a human rights activist focused on the Middle East and Iran.

This past week, Reuters reported an exclusive story, entitled “Iran tells West President Rouhani at risk if talks fail: Iranian officials” Javad Zarif, Iran’s crafty Foreign Minister, has continued to sell the idea that the United States must make a quick deal with Iran, or else lose risk losing the “moderation” offered by Rouhani. This report comes amid a strong push by Tehran to finalize a nuclear deal, “or else”. These remarks show just how desperate Iran is for a nuclear deal, and that reform in Iran is a facade used to achieve political ends.

Paulo Casaca is founder of the Brussels based international co-operation association  ARCHumankind, “Alliance to Renew Co-operation among Humankind”, and the “Euro Reform Initiative”

As the Iranian Islamic Republic marks its thirty sixth anniversary, the US administration makes ever more clear its will to reach a nuclear deal with Iran at any cost.

According to the Washington Post editorial board, in spite of the fact it habitually defends the talks and shuts down objections to them, the latest proposal from US negotiators “raises major concerns” about the probable consequences of inking an agreement along those lines.

Hamid Yazdan Panah is an attorney focused on asylum and immigration in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is also a human rights activist focused on the Middle East and Iran.

The nuclear negotiations with Iran have continued to dominate headlines, with policy makers focused on reaching a deal with Tehran. Lost in this discussion is the humanitarian crisis faced by the people of Iran, and their struggle to overcome a brutal regime. I believe the case can be made that the Iranian regime should be sanctioned, aside from the nuclear issue, primarily because of its egregious human rights violations against its own people.

In the face of mounting dissent, the Iranian regime has been forced to contain the population using its classical tools of choice; terror and repression. Currently Iran is second only to China in the number of executions, and leads the world in per capita execution rate. Its prisons are overcrowded, and torture and mistreatment is common place.