About LA’s Iranian diaspora
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An outsized portion of the Iranian diaspora make their homes in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of 2019, nearly 140,000 immigrants from Iran — representing more than one in three of all Iranian immigrants in the U.S. — lived in the L.A. area. More than half of all Iranian immigrants to the U.S. live in California overall.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last week reportedly ordered an amnesty or reduced sentences for “tens of thousands” of people amid anti-government protests that have continued since September.
Human rights groups estimate that nearly 20,000 people have been jailed since demonstrations broke out over the death of of Mahsa Amini, known by her Kurdish name Jina, while in the custody of the country’s morality police.
According to Human Rights Activists in Iran, which has been tracking the crackdown, at least 527 people have been killed in the government’s crackdown on protests. The group also says Iran executed four of those detained in hastened trials, which have been condemned internationally.
Iran has announced mass pardons in the past, usually around religious holidays or in this case on Feb. 11, the anniversary of the Iranian Islamic Revolution that brought the regime to power.
So how many of those detained protesters are likely to go free? Not many, said Gissou Nia, a human rights attorney who directs the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Litigation Project. Nia spoke to Morning Edition’s Leila Fadel about…
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