In 2018, the Saudi-born journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, evidently because his writings were critical of the government in Riyadh and sympathetic to Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood. The incident received a great deal of media coverage and widespread condemnation. By contrast, notes Eliora Katz, the death of an Iranian dissident, Molavi Vardanjani, has gone almost unnoticed—despite the strikingly similar circumstances:
Like Khashoggi, Vardanjani once worked for his government. He reportedly was a cybersecurity official in the Iranian defense ministry before moving to Turkey in 2018. From Istanbul, he became a vocal critic of the regime [in Tehran]. On November 14, 2019, Vardanjani was shot to death while walking with a friend in Istanbul’s affluent Sisli district. Unbeknownst to the dissident, his “friend” was an undercover Iranian agent and the leader of a killing squad, according to the Turkish police report.
The international community largely has remained silent about Vardanjani’s killing. Where are the human-rights champions who protested so loudly on Khashoggi’s behalf? Although Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke out, there have been no condemnations from global leaders, international organizations, or columnists. Instead, many publications are filled with opinion pieces urging Washington to dial down the pressure on Tehran. Progressive lawmakers [likewise] are pushing the administration to relieve sanctions.
The same month the Islamic Republic apparently took Vardanjani’s life, it also took the lives of perhaps as many as 1,500 Iranians protesting against the regime. Many of these civilians appear to have died by indiscriminate fire. Even the Saudi crown prince hasn’t ordered people to be gunned down in the streets of Riyadh. There is a perverse moral imbalance at work among so many critics of the Trump administration who want to see sanctions lifted on Iran’s theocracy. They really ought to ask themselves whether Vardanjani’s life is worth less than Khashoggi’s.
Read more on The Hill: https://thehill.com/opinion/international/492291-irans-khashoggi-wheres-the-outrage-over-the-death-of-masoud-molavi