Why does NIAC oppose US government funding for organizations inside Iran?
Prominent Iranian pro-democracy and human rights activists — such as Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, investigative journalist Akbar Ganji, Woodrow Wilson scholar Haleh Esfandiari and Human Rights Watch — have all come out forcefully against any politicized US government funding for organizations inside Iran, because of the additional security risk these funds pose to on-the-ground activists. (See the BBC for more information). NIAC believes that it is critical for the United States to take the concerns and prospective of pro-democracy human rights activists inside Iran seriously. NIAC has seen, up close, the negative effects of politicized US government funding. For several years, NIAC worked with Iranian NGOs doing non-political capacity building through National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funds, and witnessed how the atmosphere in which these organizations operated inside Iran became drastically worse due to politicized US funds. NIAC believes that any effort by the US go
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