Many of my friends and family were among the nearly three million people who voted for Mr. Saied. Yet from the outset, I found Mr. Saied’s project terrifying. Mr. Saied’s goal is to purify society from corrupt influence: Social hygiene, not social justice, is the point. In April the children of numerous political prisoners, speaking from Geneva, called on the European Union to impose sanctions on Mr. Saied’s regime. The goal is not simply to crush dissent but also to dehumanize political prisoners and their families.

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