Iran’s jailed dual nationals and their uncertain fate

The plight of British-Iranian girl Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been launched after being held on spying fees in Iran for nearly six years, targeted consideration on Iranians with twin nationality or international everlasting residency who’re held within the Islamic Republic’s prisons.

Iran doesn’t recognise twin nationality, and there are not any precise figures on the variety of such detainees given the delicate nature of the data. A number of the most distinguished are:

The 66-year-old businessman and wildlife conservationist, who additionally holds American and British citizenship, was arrested throughout a crackdown on environmental activists in January 2018. His Canadian-Iranian colleague, Kavous Seyed-Emami, died in custody just a few weeks later in unexplained circumstances.

The authorities accused Tahbaz and 7 different conservationists of gathering categorized details about Iran’s strategic areas beneath the pretext of finishing up environmental and scientific tasks.

The conservationists – members of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Basis – had been utilizing cameras to trace endangered species together with the Asiatic cheetah and Persian leopard, in keeping with Amnesty Worldwide.

UN human rights consultants mentioned it was “arduous to fathom how working to protect the Iranian wildlife can presumably be linked to conducting espionage in opposition to Iranian pursuits”, whereas a authorities committee concluded that there was no proof to recommend they had been spies.

However in October 2018, Tahbaz and three of his fellow conservationists had been charged with “corruption on earth” (later modified to “co-operating with the hostile state of the US”), which carries the dying penalty. Three others had been charged with espionage, and a fourth was accused of appearing in opposition to nationwide safety.

All eight denied the fees and Amnesty Worldwide mentioned there was proof that that they had been subjected to torture with a view to extract compelled “confessions”.

In November 2019, they had been sentenced to jail phrases starting from 4 to 10 years and ordered to return allegedly “illicit revenue”.

Human Rights Watch denounced what it mentioned was an unfair trial, throughout which the defendants had been apparently unable to see the complete file of proof in opposition to them.

The Courtroom of Appeals reportedly upheld Tahbaz’s convictions in February 2020.

UN human rights consultants warned final 12 months that Tahbaz’s well being situation had repeatedly deteriorated throughout his imprisonment. Regardless of that, they added, he had been denied entry to correct remedy.

In March 2022, UK International Secretary Liz Truss mentioned Tahbaz had been launched from jail on furlough. The announcement got here on the identical day that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and fellow British nationwide Anoosheh Ashoori had been launched by Iran and allowed to return to the UK.

“We are going to proceed to work to safe Morad’s departure from Iran,” Ms Truss mentioned.

Siamak Namazi, 50, labored as head of strategic planning at Dubai-based Crescent Petroleum.

He was arrested by the Revolutionary Guards in October 2015, whereas his octogenarian father Baquer, 85, was arrested in February 2016 after Iranian officers granted him permission to go to his son in jail.

That October, they had been each sentenced to 10 years in jail by a Revolutionary Courtroom for “co-operating with a international enemy state”. An appeals court docket upheld their sentence in August 2017.

Their lawyer mentioned they denied the fees in opposition to them. He additionally complained that that they had been held in solitary confinement and denied entry to authorized illustration, and had suffered well being issues. Siamak can be alleged to have been tortured.

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention mentioned the Namazis’ imprisonment violated the Common Declaration of Human Rights and the Worldwide Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and demanded their launch.

Baquer was given medical go away from jail in 2018 and positioned beneath home arrest. Nonetheless, his well being has continued to deteriorate at house.

In early 2020, Baquer was knowledgeable that the Revolutionary Courtroom had commuted his sentence to time served and that the bail he had posted for his medical go away was launched, in keeping with his lawyer.

Regardless of the ruling, he was compelled to remain in Iran due to a global journey ban, even after he needed to endure surgical procedure to clear near-total arterial blockages in his mind in late 2021.

Siamak stays in Evin jail, together with two different detained US twin nationals.

The 50-year-old specialist in emergency drugs was arrested in April 2016 whereas on a enterprise journey from Sweden.

Amnesty Worldwide mentioned Djalali was held at Evin jail by intelligence ministry officers for seven months, three of them in solitary confinement, earlier than he was given entry to a lawyer.

He alleged that he was subjected to torture and different ill-treatment throughout that interval, together with threats to kill or in any other case hurt his kids, who reside in Sweden, and his mom, who lives in Iran.

In October 2017, a Revolutionary Courtroom in Tehran convicted Djalali of “spreading corruption on earth” and sentenced him to dying. His legal professionals mentioned the court docket relied totally on proof obtained beneath duress and alleged that he was prosecuted solely due to his refusal to make use of his educational ties in European establishments to spy for Iran.

Two months later, Iranian state tv additionally aired what it mentioned was footage of Djalali confessing that he had spied on Iran’s nuclear programme for Israel. It instructed he was liable for figuring out two Iranian nuclear scientists who had been killed in bomb assaults in 2010.

In November 2020, Iran dismissed an enchantment by Sweden’s international minister for it to not implement the dying sentence, after Djalali’s spouse mentioned he had been knowledgeable by jail authorities that confronted imminent execution. He spent 5 months in solitary confinement, awaiting execution, till April 2021, when he reportedly was transferred to a multi-occupancy cell.

Djalali’s household says he has been denied entry to applicable medical look after quite a few well being problems whereas in jail.

Sweden gave him citizenship in 2018. He had beforehand been a everlasting resident.

The researcher at Sciences-Po college in Paris is a specialist in social anthropology and the political anthropology of post-revolutionary Iran, and has written a lot of books.

On the time of her arrest in Tehran in June 2019, she was analyzing the motion of Shia clerics between Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq, and had hung out within the holy metropolis of Qom.

Adelkhah was accused of espionage and different security-related offences.

She protested her innocence and after happening starvation strike, she was admitted to hospital for remedy for extreme kidney injury.

Prosecutors dropped the espionage cost earlier than her trial started on the Revolutionary Courtroom in April 2020. The next month, the court docket sentenced Adelkhah to 5 years in jail for conspiring in opposition to nationwide safety and an extra 12 months for propaganda in opposition to the institution.

French International Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian condemned the sentence and demanded her launch.

In October 2020, as a consequence of what Sciences-Po referred to as her “well being circumstances”, Adelkhah was launched on bail and allowed to return to her house in Tehran.

Nonetheless, Iran’s judiciary introduced in January 2022 that it had returned Adelkhah to jail, accusing her of “knowingly violating the boundaries of home arrest dozens of occasions”.

French President Emmanuel Macron referred to as the choice “completely arbitrary” and mentioned all of France was “mobilised for her launch”.

The accountant was an adviser to the governor of Iran’s central financial institution and was a member of the Iranian negotiating staff for the nation’s 2015 nuclear take care of world powers, in command of monetary points.

He was arrested by the Revolutionary Guards in August 2016 simply earlier than he was as a consequence of board a flight to Canada, and was accused of “promoting the nation’s financial particulars to foreigners”.

In Could 2017, a Revolutionary Courtroom in Tehran convicted Dorri Esfahani on espionage fees, together with “collaborating with the British secret service”, and sentenced him to 5 years in jail.

That October an appeals court docket upheld Dorri Esfahani’s sentence, regardless of Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi insisting that he was harmless.

The CEO of Austria-based IT administration and consulting firm Avanoc was detained throughout a enterprise journey to Iran in January 2016.

That October, an Iranian prosecutor mentioned Ghaderi had been sentenced to 10 years in jail after being convicted of espionage and co-operating with a hostile state.

His spouse insisted that he was a “easy businessman” who was unjustly imprisoned, whereas human rights teams mentioned he was coerced into confessing to spying.

His conviction was upheld on enchantment and his request to the Supreme Courtroom for a retrial has not been granted.

Ghaderi’s bodily and psychological well being has deteriorated in Evin jail. In July 2019, UN human rights consultants mentioned he had been denied applicable medical remedy, regardless of having a tumour in his leg.

His household and that of one other Austrian twin nationwide, Massud Mossaheb, have criticised the Austrian authorities’s method to their circumstances, significantly its failure to publicly request their launch.

“After years of constant to depend on ‘silent diplomacy’, we interpret this both as an indication of resignation, a scarcity of dedication or a scarcity of will to contemplate different methods,” they wrote in an open letter to the international ministry in April 2021.

In January 2022, Ghaderi’s spouse advised the Guardian that it was not clear what Iran wished in return for his launch. “It might not be one thing immediately from Austria, however from the EU,” she mentioned.

The previous businessman, who’s an Austrian-Iranian twin nationwide, was arrested in Tehran in January 2019.

Amnesty Worldwide cited knowledgeable sources as saying Mossaheb was held in a lodge room for 3 days, the place intelligence ministry brokers subjected him to torture by sleep deprivation, interrogated him with out a lawyer current, and coerced him into signing paperwork.

He was then transferred to Evin jail, the place in keeping with the sources he was tortured.

In April 2020, Mossaheb was sentenced to 22 years in jail after being convicted of “espionage for Germany”, “collaborating with a hostile authorities” – a reference to Israel – and “receiving illicit funds” from each international locations.

Amnesty Worldwide mentioned the trial was “grossly unfair”, with the court docket counting on counting on alleged “confessions” that he retracted in court docket and advised the choose he had made beneath torture.

In January 2021, a secret audio recording made by Mossaheb in Evin jail was launched. In it, he pleaded to listeners to “assist me and rescue me from this hell”.

He additionally mentioned he was affected by a number of well being points, together with diabetes, neuropathy and a defective coronary heart valve, and that he wanted to have surgical procedure to take away a kidney cyst.

The retired architect, a German-Iranian twin nationwide, was arrested at her condominium in Tehran in October 2020 and accused of “endangering safety”.

She was positioned in solitary confinement at Evin jail and never given entry to legal professionals, German diplomats or members of her household, in keeping with her daughter Mariam Claren.

Taghavi was repeatedly subjected to coercive questioning with out the presence of legal professionals, in keeping with Amnesty Worldwide. Interrogators reportedly requested her about assembly individuals to debate girls’s and labour rights, and possessing literature about these points.

In August 2021, she was convicted by a Revolutionary court docket in Tehran of “forming a bunch composed of greater than two individuals with the aim of disrupting nationwide safety” and “spreading propaganda in opposition to the system”. She was sentenced to 10 years and eight months in jail.

Taghavi had denied the fees, the primary of which was apparently associated to a social media account about girls’s rights, and Amnesty mentioned the trial was “grossly unfair”.

Ms Claren wrote on Twitter that her mom “didn’t commit any crime. Until freedom of speech, freedom of thought are unlawful”.

She has mentioned her mom has been denied enough healthcare by jail and prosecution authorities, regardless of medical doctors saying in September 2021 that she wanted surgical procedure on her spinal column.

The couple, who’re Zoroastrians, personal a widely known artwork gallery. They had been arrested by the Revolutionary Guards at Tehran’s worldwide airport in July 2016.

Two weeks later, the Tehran prosecutor introduced that “two Iranian twin nationals” had been charged with internet hosting events for international diplomats and Iranian associates throughout which women and men combined and alcohol was served.

Iran’s structure says adherents of Zoroastrianism – an historical, pre-Islamic faith – will not be topic to Islamic legal guidelines on alcohol and combined gender gatherings.

In early 2017, additional fees had been introduced in opposition to Vafadari and his spouse, together with “co-operation with enemies of the state”, “actions to overthrow the regime” and “recruitment of spies by international embassies”.

In January 2018, Vafadari wrote in a letter from Evin jail saying {that a} Revolutionary Courtroom had sentenced him to 27 years in jail and his spouse to 16 years, in keeping with the US-based Middle for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). He vigorously rejected all the fees they confronted.

The couple’s sentences had been later decreased to fifteen years and 10 years respectively, their son mentioned.

In July 2018, the authorities reportedly launched them on bail, pending an enchantment.