diplomat and his family, more than a month after he quit the Iranian Embassy in Helsinki and joined the so-called Green Movement opposition.
Hossein Alizadeh, who was the deputy head of mission—the Number Two diplomat—in Iran’s embassy in Helsinki, told Agence France Presse, “It is my main goal now to work for the benefit of the success of the Green Movement.”
The Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat first reported the asylum decision last Thursday, quoting an anonymous official as saying the reasons for it are “obvious,” referring to the treatment of opposition activists in Iran.
Alizadeh told AFP that while he hopes to find a new job that will take advantage of his foreign affairs experience, his priority is to the opposition movement.
“This is why six of us diplomats have formed a campaign of ‘green embassies,’ in which we are showing that ex-diplomats of the Iranian regime are now dissidents and against the regime,” he said.
Alizadeh announced on September 13 that he would seek asylum in Finland, days after he delivered a blistering critique of the Iranian regime in his resignation.
He condemned as “fraudulent” the 2009 elections that granted President Ahmadi-nejad another term in office. “Even worse,” he said, “is the brutal behavior of the Iranian regime against the people who took to the streets in protest.”
Two other Iranian diplomats have also defected so far this year, one who was posted in Norway and the other from Brussels. The other three dissident diplomats Alizadeh referred to had defected in previous years.