Iran's Weekly Wire 26

IranWire

Before the 1979 revolution, Iran was full of foreign travellers. People came for the splendors of antiquity, and for the best modern art collection in the Middle East. But after the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War, Iran’s tourism industry never fully recovered. Now, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says he wants to double tourist numbers to Iran. And he’s succeeding. Last year, tourist numbers jumped by 35 percent. Meanwhile, Iran’s human rights situation keeps getting worse. As tourist numbers spike, so do executions. This week, Roland Elliott Brown looks at the politics, and the ethics, of traveling in Iran.