Yousof Azizi: The Iranian-American scholar pressured by the FBI to return to Iran

Monday 13 April started as a normal day for Yousof Azizi, a PhD student at Virginia Tech University in America. In the morning, he took his 12-year-old daughter and four-year-old son to their schools in Baltimore, Maryland, before returning home. A vocal opponent of the war on Iran, he had been living in the US for nearly 13 years and was recognised as a prominent political commentator on Persian-language media platforms and on his YouTube channel, which has more than 68,000 subscribers. Azizi had also been involved in discussions with Congress in relation to the Iran nuclear deal during Barack Obama’s presidency. When he arrived back home that April morning, a number of FBI vehicles were parked outside his residence. Upon exiting his car, Azizi found himself surrounded by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, their rifles pointing straight at him. Read more: Yousof Azizi: The Iranian-American scholar pressured by the FBI to return to Iran Yousof Azizi was detained for three months before requesting voluntary departure from the US to Iran (supplied/MEE)