For forty-two years, my family has lived in exile.

We did not leave Iran for comfort. We left because dissent became a crime, faith became law, and law became a weapon.

I know this personally.

I was imprisoned in Evin Prison for eighteen months when I was barely sixteen years old. A child placed inside a system designed to break political will. That experience does not fade. It defines what regime rule means in reality.

I made a promise to myself: I will not set foot in Iran while the Islamic regime remains in power.

That promise is not emotional. It is principled. It is my red line.

If I return one day, it will be to a different country — one rebuilt on law, not ideology.

Today, returning as someone who openly opposed the Islamic Republic is not symbolic. It is dangerous. The security apparatus monitors critics abroad. Political speech does not expire. Interrogations at airports, vague national security charges, pressure tactics — these are consistent patterns. Dual nationals and political critics have been detained years after leaving, sometimes used as leverage in diplomatic maneuvering.

I have also been instrumental in exposing and opposing the regime’s operations abroad. My advocacy contributed to the closure of the Islamic Republic’s embassy in Canada — a mission that functioned not merely as diplomacy, but as an extension of repression.

That record would not disappear........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)