May 26, 2018
In a resignation letter posted on his Twitter account, the former deputy head of Iran’s Environmental Protection Agency, Kaveh Madani, report- ed that he was spied on from the moment he returned to Iran last year.
“As you are aware, since I made a determination to return to the country, the friends and concerned supporters of the state have created many problems for me on the margins to the point that since my return to Iran, in the absence of any judicial permission, not only have my personal hardware and accounts been broken into, but my ‘citizen rights’ to privacy have also been violated,” wrote Madani, who confirmed his resignation April 15, via a tweet he posted after he had left the country.
The 36-year-old former researcher at the Imperial College in London, who was previously at the University of California at Riverside, left Iran just seven months after returning to serve in the government of President Hassan Rohani.
Madani was arrested in February during a crackdown on environmentalists by the Pasdaran and interrogated for at least two days before he was released.
“Although I had worked at my post for several months and my goals, thoughts, behavior and actions had become well known to the aforementioned [supporters of the state], nevertheless, they reviewed all available documents containing the smallest details of my personal and professional life during the years I lived abroad,” wrote Madani.
Madani said, “I feel things are not getting better, but getting worse and affecting my beloved ones. I say this with a broken but hopeful heart. I resign.”
Madani had worked and studied abroad for about 15 years before returning to Iran. Many criticized him as a dual national with mixed loyalties, but Madani said he had never taken out foreign citizenship during his residence in Europe and the United States.
Many Iranians, including deputies in the Majlis and journalists, had taken to Twitter to lament Madani’s departure. But hardliners accused him of trying to “escape” an investigation.
“If some people prefer to escape that’s because there were important preliminary investigations going on and they realized that we were getting close to the truth,” Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Dolatabadi said April 18 without mentioning Madani by name. “He will come back one day. We will get him sooner or later.”
One photo that has been posted on social media and used against Madani shows him dancing in the United States about five years ago.
Madani was among at least 12 environmentalists arrested in January and February and accused of spying for foreign governments. No evidence has been provided to substantiate this claim, which has been touted by hardline media sites. One of the detainees, Iranian-Canadian academic Kavous Seyed-Emami, died under suspicious circum-stances in Evin Prison February 19.
His wife Maryam Mom-beini has been banned from leaving the country.
Some officials have pointed to Madani’s departure as a reminder of Iran’s brain drain problem.
“We are destroying our social resources and causing a brain drain that will result in general mistrust,” said Reza Tabesh, the leader of the Environmental Affairs caucus in the Majlis.
Abdol-Karim Hossain-zadeh, the leader of the caucus for citizens’ rights, added: “In the past couple of decades, we have witnessed the wide exodus of the educated class from the country. We definitely have to come up with a transparent strategy about this when individuals like Kaveh Madani return to their country because of their love for their homeland and want to serve the people and make a difference.”
Abbas Milani, an Iranian-American historian and the director of Iranian studies at Stanford University in California, tweeted that Madani’s departure was an example of the struggle ever since the revolution between elites “who want good for Iran and know how to rescue it” and those who are hiding their hunger for power and self-interest under the cover of Islam.