George Washington University should investigate Sina Azadi’s performance

Shirin Ebadi and a group of experts: George Washington University should investigate Sina Azadi’s performance

• A group of prominent experts on Islamic Republic affairs, including Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner, published an open letter to George Washington University last week, demanding an investigation into Sina Azadi’s performance due to her defense of Khamenei’s violence and accusations of associating with prostitutes.
• Sina Azadi, an assistant professor of Middle East politics and director of the Middle East Studies Master’s Program at George Washington University, has recently published a controversial book titled “Iran and the Bomb: The United States, Iran, and the Nuclear Issue.”
• Based on this letter, Sina Azadi has defended the Islamic Republic’s repression of citizens. In an interview with the BBC Persian service in 2019, he said: “Governments have the right to use force against their citizens, whether in the US or in Iran.”
• The letter also revealed that “Fairfax County, Virginia, court records, which are publicly available and date back to January 16, 2008, show that Sina Azdi was prosecuted under Virginia law for a prostitution-related offense.”
• The authors of the letter also emphasized: “The existence of such a record justifiably raises serious questions about the professional judgment, moral competence, and conduct of an individual who is in a position of influence in an academic environment and who interacts directly with students.”