Former Iran Hostages Demand Release Of Swedish Doctor On Death Row

Fifteen former Iran hostages have censured the Swedish government for “lack of meaningful action” to free Swedish-Iranian doctor Ahmadreza Djalali, who has been on death row in Iran for more than 6 years.

“Sweden has done little to secure his release and also inexcusably failed to provide his family with the level of support and information they need and deserve,” the signatories write in a letter dated 25 April, the eve of Djalali’s eighth year in prison.

Djalali was arrested in April 2016, visiting Iran on an academic trip at the invitation of the University of Tehran and Shiraz University. He was charged with espionage and collaboration with Israel two weeks after his arrest –a charge leveled at many, often with little or no real evidence. In October 2017, he was sentenced to death.

“As former hostages who endured the harrowing ordeal of prolonged unlawful detention in Iran,” the letter reads, “we write to express our deep concern over the ongoing lack of meaningful action taken by your government to secure the release of Ahmadreza Djalali, a Swedish physician on death row in the notorious Evin Prison.”

The signatories include Barry Rosen, who was taken hostage in Iran in 1979, when young supporters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini stormed the US embassy in Tehran, and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who spent six years in arbitrary detention in Iran, before reuniting with his family in the UK in 2022. Also on the signatories list is Siamak Namazi, Morad Tahbaz and Emad Sharghi, three of five US citizens released in 2023, as part of a deal brokered by the Biden administration, in which the US released 5 Iranian prisoners and paid $6 billion to the Iranian government.

That deal was heavily criticized at the time, and even more so after October 7th, when critics blamed the Biden administration for replenishing Iran’s coffers shortly before Hamas, sponsored by the regime in Tehran, attacked Israel.

“There is also an obligation incumbent on all of us to upend the vicious but prospering enterprise of hostage-taking by rogue states,” former Iran hostages write to the Swedish prime minister. “We ask that your government join forces with other countries whose citizens are being arbitrarily detained by the Islamic Republic and its ilk, and to attack the problem at its root. We must collectively devise and enforce draconian penalties that would deter this inhumane practice from happening in the first place.”

Taking hostages under false judicial pretexts has become normal practice in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Foreign and dual-national travelers are detained and used as bargaining chips by the government in dealing with western governments.

Many human rights activists are concerned that Dr Djalali could be used by authorities in Iran to secure the release –and return– of Hamid Nouri, a key figure in mass execution of Iranian political prisoners in 1988. He was a former Islamic official who was arrested in Stockholm airport in 2019 and sentenced to life in prison in 2023, after a long trial in which many former Iranian prisoners now in exile testified.

“It would be a tragedy of unacceptable proportions if Dr. Djalali—or any of your arbitrarily detained citizens—is excluded in any future prisoner deals,” former Iran hostages conclude their letter. “Sweden has a clear duty to secure the safe return of all its innocent citizens that Tehran is using as pawns in its wicked game of hostage diplomacy.”

The signatories and the years they spent as hostages in Iran are as follows:

Barry Rosen (1979- 1981), Jason Rezaian (2014 - 2016), Nizar Zakka (2015- 2019), Siamak Namazi (2015 - 2023), Mohammad Baquer Namazi (2016- 2022), Xiyue Wang (2016- 2019), Kamran Ghaderi (2016- 2023), Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe (2016- 2022), Anoosheh Ashouri (2017- 2022), Kylie Moore-Gilbert (2018- 2020), Morad Tahbaz (2018- 2023), Emad Sharghi (2018- 2023), Benjamin Briere(2020- 2023), Fariba Adelkhah (2019- 2023), Roland Marchal (2019- 2020)