Iran has tried members of its cheetah conservation project with espionage. The general coverage by the likes of @franslanting makes it sound like a random paranoid decision. Paranoid it may be. But random it was not. It turns out that, without the conservationists’ knowledge, an American billionaire funding them through his Panthera project was also a funder of a pro-regime-change anti-Iranian government group close to the US govt, the Saudi govt, the UAE govt, and the Israeli govt. The cheetah scientists tried to distance themselves from his statements, but it was too late. Their ties were now suspicious in light of relentless hostility from these nations to the Iranian regime.
As @theintercept’s piece made clear - ultimate responsibility is with the Iranian government. But this billionaire’s cavalier attitude has killed one conservationist and landed the others in jail - from which they’re unlikely to emerge soon.
Not only has this foolishness created a human tragedy but it puts the tenuous survival of the last Asiatic Cheetahs on Earth at even greater risk.