A promising start

by Gareth Smith August 26, 2014

written by Gareth Smith August 26, 2014

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani

Mohammad Khatami has criticized a six year jail sentence handed to journalist and activist Serajeddin Mirdamadi. In speaking out, the former president reflects a sense among fellow reformists that little has changed in the year since Hassan Rouhani assumed the presidency promising to “desecuritize” Iran’s domestic atmosphere. Mir-Hossein Musavi and Mehdi Karroubi, former presidential candidates and leaders of the ‘green movement’ which took to the streets to contest the 2009 presidential election, remain under house arrest. Husband and wife Jason Rezaian and Yeganeh Salehi, reporters for the Washington Post and The National respectively, have been detained since July. Many suggest that opponents of Rouhani are fighting his presidency with any available tool, using state positions to crush expectations of liberal change. ‘Principle-ists,’ or fundamentalists, fear that Rouhani, however loyal to the system, is an unwitting Trojan horse for those who would undermine the Islamic Republic. Hence, while Rouhani has called

Gareth Smith

Gareth Smith was a distinguished journalist who reported from the Middle East for over two decades. He served as the Financial Times correspondent in Tehran, where he was the chief Iran correspondent from 2003, following his earlier role as Lebanon correspondent. Throughout his career, Smith covered Middle Eastern affairs for leading media outlets, including The Financial Times, The Guardian, and the BBC. He also contributed as an editor to Executive magazine. His work as a freelance journalist in the 1990s, focusing on the politics of Iran and Iraq, paved the way for his appointment at the FT. In 2009, he relocated to the west coast of Ireland, where he balanced freelance journalism with his passion for nature and the land.

A promising start

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