More Than 300 Prominent Iranian-Americans Write to President Biden, Urging Firm Policy Toward Tehran, Support for Iranians Seeking Freedom

WASHINGTON, April 7, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- On Wednesday, April 7, 2021, the Iranian Professionals' Ad Hoc Committee on Iran Policy sent an open letter to President Joe Biden, chronicling many dimensions of Tehran's malign conduct, particularly its appalling human rights record and suppression of dissidents at home and abroad, asking for "strong and immediate actions in support of the Iranian people's desire for a democratic, secular, and nonnuclear Republic of Iran."

Noting the regime's fast declining state, the letter signed by more than 300 prominent Iranian-American scientists, scholars, professors, physicians, industry executives and professionals, stressed that "defending human rights and democracy in Iran should be the central and enduring element" of President Biden's policy toward Tehran as his administration crafts its Iran policy.

The co-signers emphasized, "No sanctions relief or concessions should be provided to the Iranian regime, unless that regime verifiably ends its human rights abuses in Iran and terrorism abroad, and abandons its destructive support for proxies in the region."

Professor Kazem Kazerounian, one of the leading organizers of the letter and coordinator of the Iranian Professionals' Ad Hoc Committee on Iran Policy, said: "Many of the co-signers of the letter were the would be targets of a terror plot by the Iranian regime in June 2018 near Paris, for which a Vienna-based Iranian diplomat, Assadollah Assadi, was arrested and sentenced to 20 years by a Belgian Court in February 2021."

Jila K. Andalib, a technology executive, stated: "The letter reflects the views of many Iranian-Americans who are in contact with their family members in Iran, many of whom are victims of repression, including the 1988 massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in Iran, or the 1,500 killed during the November 2019 uprising."

Reza Tand, an executive vice president in the environmental sciences Industry, added: "Forty years of searching for phantom moderates in the regime has been miserably futile. Instead, more frequent and more intense popular uprisings, particularly involving the younger generation, are the new reality of Iran. America must not lose this historic opportunity to stand on the side of the Iranian people."

The letter follows President Biden's encouraging words that the U.S. will not offer sanctions relief to Tehran to get it to the negotiating table, and that human rights will be at the center of American foreign policy.

SOURCE Iranian Professionals' Ad Hoc Committee on Iran Policy