Jailed Iranian-American Implores Biden To ‘End This Nightmare’

Jailed Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi has called on President Joe Biden for efforts to release him and other American citizens, asking him to “End This Nightmare.”

In a guest essay for the New York Times written "while caged in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison,” the longest-held Iranian American prisoner said Wednesday “the Biden administration’s approach to rescuing Americans in distress in Iran has failed spectacularly so far and unless the president intervenes immediately, we are likely to languish in this abyss for the foreseeable future.”

He said he was handed a 10-year sentence for speaking at university conferences and having a connection to the World Economic Forum, which the judge ruled as “tantamount to attempting to overthrow the regime in collaboration with a hostile foreign government -- meaning the United States.”

He said Iran frees its captives only if offered sufficient incentives, adding that “Tehran seems to be demanding more for our release than the White House can stomach.” “Mr. Biden, I implore you to put the lives of innocent American detainees above Washington politics.”

Namazi has been in prison since October 2015 on vague charges of collaboration with a foreign government. After Siamak’s arrest, his 84-year-old father, Bagher Namazi, a retired senior UNICEF official, traveled to Iran in 2016 to help him but he was also arrested and jailed in 2017 on obscure accusations.

Tehran is accused of detaining foreigners and dual nationals on trumped up charges to use them for getting concessions.

Namazi made the plea as Tehran-Washington indirect nuclear talks are underway in Qatar.