At least they have funding to recruit some foreign students or postdocs there, like Walter and Blanche.
But what I don’t understand is why two researchers that appear to actually be doing something interesting in ML, as their paper on arxiv shows, use so much of their time with this crusade against the language. Probably doing research in Iran is not easy (it is not in Brazil, and we are still privileged), and they really have potential to do good work. I hope the best for them and that they can approach Julia with a constructive and positive view in the future.