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Human rights activists say there's something missing in the U.S. talks with Iran - that is how Iran treats its own citizens. President Trump told protesters earlier this year that, quote, "help was on its way," but Iran cracked down, killing thousands. And activists say the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran has so far only increased the repression, as NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: Back in February when he launched the war, President Trump was telling the Iranian people that he's giving them what they want, backing them with - in his words - overwhelming strength and devastating force.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take.
KELEMEN: Earlier this month, he sounded a bit less confident.
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TRUMP: Well, they should do it. But again, the consequences are great. I mean, they were told, you - if you protest, you will be shot immediately.
KELEMEN: That's true, says Hadi Ghaemi, who runs the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran.
HADI GHAEMI: People have been warned that any sign of dissent is equivalent to working with Israelis and Americans and therefore is a capital crime.
KELEMEN: Iranians have faced their longest-ever internet blackout, and Ghaemi says in that darkness, the Iranian government has been arresting more political prisoners and carrying out executions. It's been difficult for activists to get solid information out of Iran.
GHAEMI: I would say most people that we talk to are horrified at the idea that the regime will come out stronger than before the war in confronting them and will have a lot of revenge feelings it wants to take on ordinary Iranians who oppose it.
KELEMEN: That's a message that another Iranian American human rights activist Roya Boroumand says she received from a 25-year-old man. She read the message during a recent online forum organized by a think tank called The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, soon after the U.S. and Iran reached a ceasefire.
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ROYA BOROUMAND: (Reading) There is not even a single word about us. With this ceasefire, the world once again left us alone in the slaughterhouse of the clerics.
KELEMEN: The Washington Institute's Holly Dagres, who moderated that online forum, told NPR that the Trump administration is letting down the Iranian people.
HOLLY DAGRES: Not only have they not successfully ousted the regime, they've emboldened them. And they've left them with individuals that are arguably more hardline. So some Iranians would say that it's become more like North Korea in that regard.
KELEMEN: A White House spokesperson, Anna Kelly, told NPR that once Iran's nuclear threat is removed for good the entire region and its people will be safer and more stable. The State Department told NPR in an email that the U.S., quote, "relentlessly supports and defends the unalienable rights of the Iranian people." But when asked if human rights are part of the negotiations, the department wouldn't comment on private diplomatic matters. Dagres has been urging the Trump administration to think about the Iranian people, not just the Strait of Hormuz and the nuclear program.
DAGRES: You can start by saying turn on the internet. The internet's been in a shutdown since the war. That is the longest internet shutdown in modern-day history and also the fifth shutdown that Iranians have experienced in recent years.
KELEMEN: Human rights activist Hadi Ghaemi echoes that and says the Trump administration could be pushing this agenda at the United Nations, but he's not seeing that.
GHAEMI: Unfortunately no, human rights, in a concrete way, is absent.
KELEMEN: He says the Trump administration is talking about this in a more abstract way, calling for an uprising without a clear path for the Iranian people. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, the State Department.
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