This article contains some synopsis and excerpts from the two articles published in March and April 2019 in Nature Magazine and National Geographic. The links to the two articles are at the end of this article.

In April 2019, the cases of eight conservation scientists and researchers in Iran entered a critical
phase, while prominent wildlife scientists and NGOs around the world continue to rally in support of the scientists. The conservationists, from the Tehran-based Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation (PWHF), have been accused of using camera traps to spy—a claim which is completely false as given evidence by the scientists and being rebuffed on technical grounds by camera trap experts. The international conservationists who know the Iranian detained researchers describe them as dedicated team of environmentalists, researchers, and scientists whose work to conserve critically endangered Asiatic (Persian) cheetahs as critical and extremely important.
In mid-January 2018, PWHF founder Morad Tahbaz was arrested. On January 24 and 25, eight others associated with the organization were also arrested: Managing Director Kavous Seyed-Emami, Niloufar Bayani, Houman Jowkar, Taher Ghadirian, Sepideh Kashani, Amir Hossein Khaleghi, Abdolreza Kouhpayeh, and Sam Radjabi. Amnesty International documented a broader crackdown on environmental activists, citing 63 arrests in 2018, based on media reports.
Their jailing has been met with international condemnation by many organizations including the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Wildlife Conservation Society, World Wildlife Fund, 132 leading conservationists, and the European Parliament speaking out.

Founded in 2008, PWHF operates with the permission of the Iranian government and in close cooperation with the Department of Environment and used to have a long-running relationships with UN agencies, international NGOs, and grassroots conservation groups. However, their website is no longer active today. The organization is primarily funded by in-country donors but receives technical assistance from international groups—standard procedure in the world of conservation.

The case has prompted an outcry from the international community. Reports that some
“detainees may not have adequate access to legal counsel and representation is deeply
troubling”, the United Nations Environment Programme said in a statement on 5 March. “We urge the Iranian authorities to ensure that [the researchers] are guaranteed a fair, transparent and independent trial,” it says.

Human-rights group Amnesty International released a similar statement on the same day. And a February letter to Iran’s president, 26 members of the European Parliament voiced concerns that the proceedings fall seriously short of fair-trial standards. Open letters signed by hundreds of conservationists were published shortly after the arrests last year.

One of conservationists arrested in January 2018, Dr. Kavous Seyed-Emami, a Canadian-Iranian scientist and academic, died under suspicious circumstances in Evin prison two weeks after his arrest. The authorities claimed that he had committed suicide and refused to release his body unless his family agreed to an immediate burial without an independent autopsy. Amnesty International has previously called on the Iranian authorities to conduct an impartial investigation into his death.

In March 2019, WCHV honored Dr. Emami posthumously for his life of dedication and hard work on behalf of Iran’s natural heritage and his tireless efforts devoted to conservation andpreservation in Iran. Professor Seyed-Emami was selected as the recipient of 2019 “Nowruz Award for Personality of the Year in the Field of Environment and Natural Heritage”. Conservation groups urge fair trial for jailed Iranian researchers
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01001-3
Jailed researchers trying to protect threatened cheetahs in Iran await verdict
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/03/iran-wildlife-conservationists-jailed/