Securing a Better Future for Iran’s Vulnerable Religious Communities

Abstract

This essay considers the future for religious
minorities and other at-risk communities in
Iran. It asks how to retain the legal
protections, civic spaces, and communal
institutions needed to live without fear.
Drawing on scholarship about religion,
authoritarian governance, minority
discrimination, postwar Iraq, and public
spaces, the essay contends that war threatens
the social world freedom requires. A better
future for Iran would protect plural civic
life, not merely alter political leadership.