The man who said no: how Iran coerces expats to inform on friends
by Julian Borger from on (#575WH)
Behdan Esfahbod was forced by the Revolutionary Guard to enlist as a foreign agent. But when they tried to activate him, he went public instead
On 14 June, Behdad Esfahbod, a Facebook software engineer, received a text from a strange Instagram account, supposedly from a friend of your aunt's son". But he knew exactly who it was. Esfahbod had been bracing himself for weeks, knowing it was inevitable.
The aunt's son's friend" was the intelligence division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the message was a prearranged code.
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