By Sarah Stern | As seen in JNS | January 6, 2022

I recently met with Nasser Boladai, a representative of the Balochi community of Iran, who now lives in Geneva. Unbeknownst to many Iran watchers, there are many ethnic minorities that would love nothing more than their own independent, sovereign state and who have been brutally suppressed by the regime.

Iran has not taken a census since 1976. However, judging by a 2009 statement from former Iranian Education Minister Hamid Reza Haji Babai, “70% of children starting school in Iran do not have Farsi as their mother language,” one can deduce that there are many ethnic minorities. This is not to mention the unknown number of ethnic Persians who secretly despise the theocracy. They know that the regime often uses execution as a form of eliminating any political dissent. Those who have publicly stated this position, have been banished to the notorious Evin prison where they are been systematically raped, tortured and often “disappeared.”

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Steve Emerson is considered one of the leading authorities on Islamic extremist networks, financing and operations as well national security and intelligence. He is the Executive Director of The Investigative Project on Terrorism, a non-profit organization that maintains one of the world’s largest storehouses of archival data and intelligence on Islamic and Middle Eastern terrorist groups.

Emerson and his staff frequently provide briefings to U.S. government and law enforcement agencies, Congress members and congressional committees. They also produce print and electronic media on terrorist financing, the operational networks of Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and the rest of the worldwide Islamic militant spectrum.

Emerson launched The Investigative Project on Terrorism in 1995, following the November 1994 broadcast of his documentary film, “Jihad in America,” which exposed clandestine operations of militant Islamic terrorist groups on American soil.

Emerson is one of the first terrorism experts to have testified and warned about the threat of Islamic militant networks operating in the United States and their connections worldwide. In a pioneering congressional testimony delivered in 1998, he specifically warned about the threat of Osama Bin Laden’s network. Nearly every one of the terrorist suspects and groups first identified in his 1994 film have been indicted, convicted or deported since 9-11.

Emerson has worked at CNN and US News & World Report and freelanced for the New York Times Magazine and the New Republic. He is also the author or co-author of six books on terrorism and national security. He has a BA and MA from Brown University and once ran a marathon in 2 hours, 59 minutes, a feat he was never able to repeat.