An AI-generated image depicting Trita Parsi being arrested by ICE agents, produced by pro-deportation activists. Parsi called it “quite amusing.”
The “Free Press,” a news organization founded by Bari Weiss and now owned by David Ellison, reported recently that the Trump administration launched an investigation into Trita Parsi, one of America’s most prominent critics of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, with the aim to revoke his legal permanent residency, which he has held for some 15 years, and deport him.
In the wake of the article, the State Department took the unusual step of denying that any such investigation exists; the article came after pro-Israel activist Laura Loomer has repeatedly pressured the Trump administration to deport Parsi, suggesting that the lobby is trying to produce an investigation where none exists. That The Free Press would participate in this campaign is as shameful as it is expected. Anyone who supports an actual free press must speak out now.
The attack on Parsi, a well-respected and widely known advocate for a more restrained American foreign policy, is intended to stifle dissent. If this debacle in Iran taught us anything, it should be that launching a new war without public debate portends catastrophe. Trita Parsi’s critics are calling him an enemy of the United States, but if the country had listened to him, we’d be much better off today. Trita truly represents the best of what it means to be an American with his courage to speak the truth no matter whether that truth is popular in the moment.
But it doesn’t even matter if he was right. In America, we believe freedom of speech is sacrosanct. At Drop Site News, the American Conservative, and Breaking Points, we don’t agree on everything, but we do agree that without freedom of expression, without the freedom to criticize our government, all the other freedoms will fall by the wayside.
We stand with Trita Parsi and we hope you will too. Even if you don’t agree with what he says, we must defend his right to say it. Petitions are already circulating with tens of thousands of signatures demanding that Parsi be deported.
No sentiment could be less American. But freedom can’t rest on the paper it’s written on. We as a people, right, left, and center, must insist it remain in force.
Sign the petition to show you stand for free expression and against the assault on Trita Parsi.
ADD YOUR NAME - SIGN THE PETITION!
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