You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Sean Lay.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the program, and I hope you enjoy it.

Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Sean Lay. America says Iran's

Revolutionary Guard Corps promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft. It's the first time the US has labelled another nation's military as a terrorist organisation.

Jason Rezian, who used to report from Tehran, might agree.

Certainly he knows what it's like to be terrorised by the state.

Seize from his home without warning, the US Iranian journalist was interrogated, tried and convicted on vague charges.

It was held in all for 544 days before a deal was done to release him.

He's now banned from Iran for life.

But is the Trump administration right to see maximum pressure as the way to affect change in Iran?

Jason Rezian, welcome to Hard Talk.

You'd lived in Iran for five years at the time of your arrest. How unexpected was it?

Well, Sean, thanks for having me on today. It was quite unexpected. I had been living and working there four or five years with full state permission. There had been moments where I thought my safety was potentially compromised, but I thought that we were past that era.

So it was a big job.

So initial suspicions on their part?

Certainly.

I mean, I think during those years that I worked there, there was periods of tumult within the society.

At certain points, our credentials as journalists

had been taken away across the board, myself and other colleagues as well. I always accepted

that this might happen to me, but I never expected that it actually would. Paint a picture for us.

Give us an idea of what that experience was like. You were on your way out of your apartment

on the way to a party. My wife and I were

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