What Iran’s Rouhani Doesn’t Want to Talk About
His UN speech focused on Iran’s commitment to the nuclear deal, not to human rights.
His speech wasn’t about human rights.
Photographer: Drew Angerer/Getty Images North AmericaIranian President Hassan Rouhani was in New York this week trying to rescue the Iran nuclear deal that the U.S. abandoned last spring. In his speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Rouhani contrasted himself with U.S. President Donald Trump: Iran, he said, abides by its commitments.
That’s not quite how Hua Qu sees it. Since the summer of 2016, she has written five unanswered letters to Iran’s mission at the UN, pleading the case of her husband, Xiyue Wang. Wang, a doctoral student in history at Princeton, was arrested in August of that year while in Iran doing research in the national archives. He had been scheduled to return to New Jersey in a matter of days.