Foreign countries|International politics
The Iranian regime does not officially admit that prisoners are connected to politics, but the country has repeatedly imprisoned foreign tourists, researchers and aid workers. Belgium and Britain have partially agreed to some of Iran’s demands.
Iranian Hamid Nouri was sentenced on Thursday in Stockholm district court to life imprisonment for the executions in Iran in 1988, which violated international law.
Iranian opposition activists and human rights organizations claim that thousands of political prisoners died in the executions.
The Iranian regime does not recognize the executions and, as expected, rejected the verdict in Sweden as “political”. Iran’s Foreign Ministry also again demanded Nouri’s release.
Read more: The district court in Stockholm gave a life sentence for the executions in Iran in 1988: “Why is another person who participated in them allowed to continue as president”, asks an opposition activist
Iran’s opposition groups operating abroad are demanding the resignation of President Ebrahim Rais. He worked as an assistant prosecutor at the time of the 1988 executions.
Take care during the entire process that started in 2019, has been raised by what means the Iranian administration will put pressure on Sweden.
In recent years, not only the country’s own citizens, but also foreigners and several dual citizens have been repeatedly imprisoned in Iran. The news agencies Reuters and AFP reported on the topic, for example.
According to Reuters, the Swedish Foreign Ministry announced on May 6 that a 30-year-old Swedish man had been captured in Iran. Aftonbladet according to the information received, it was a tourist traveling with other Swedes.
The Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged June 23 to avoid all travel to Iran “due to the security situation”. The warning is valid until further notice.
HS reports on the arrests of foreign tourists in autumn 2019. At the time, the position of the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs was that the Iranian authorities’ actions and legal interpretation “may be arbitrary throughout the country”.
The release of Ahmadreza Djalal, a scientist imprisoned in Iran, was demanded at a demonstration in Stockholm on May 14, 2022.
Threat of execution below According to AFP, there are currently two Swedish-Iranian persons in Iran.
One of them is a researcher and a doctor Ahmadreza Djalali. He was arrested during a visit to Iran in 2016 and later convicted of espionage.
In May 2022, according to Reuters, Iran announced again that Djalali would be executed. However, the implementation of the death penalty has been close before, for example in November 2020.
Read more: Sweden tries to prevent the execution of an Iranian-Swedish scientist in Iran, the scientist suspects that the execution of the death penalty is close
Read more: Iran upholds the death sentence of an Iranian professor who worked in Sweden – Swedish diplomats tried to help, the sentence is being overturned around the world
To the same at the time when Nouri’s sentence was handed down in Sweden, Belgium is considering extraditing an Iranian diplomat convicted of terrorism to Iran.
AFP reports on July 11 that the Belgian administration has tentatively agreed to Iran’s demand to release an Iranian diplomat Asadollah Assadi. A court in Antwerp sentenced Assad to 20 years in prison for terrorism in June 2021.
The verdict was related to the planning of the bombing. The attack would have targeted the demonstration of the Iranian opposition organization NCRI, operating in exile, on June 30, 2018.
There was a French newspaper at the demonstration Le Monde including tens of thousands of participants and several European politicians.
A protest criticizing the agreement between the Belgian and Iranian regimes called for the parliament to reject the deal with Iran’s “terrorist” regime in Brussels, Belgium on July 14, 2022.
According to AFP The Belgian government has called on parliament to approve a bilateral agreement with Iran on the “transfer of convicted persons”.
In addition to Le Monde and AFP, a Belgian newspaper has also reported on the plan of the Belgian administration De Standaard.
According to media reports, the disputed agreement would practically mean a prisoner exchange: Assadi would be released in order for Iran to release researcher Djalal and a Belgian aid worker To Olivier Vandecasteele.
Vandecasteele worked for British Broadcasting Corporation According to the BBC In Iran, among others, for the Norwegian Refugee Council aid organization.
Olivier Vandecasteele, a Belgian aid worker who worked in Iran, in a photo that Vandecasteele’s family has made available to the media.
According to AFP, he was arrested in Iran in late February 2022. Vandecasteele is also being held on “espionage charges”.
Agreementwhich according to media reports would release Assad and might also lead to the release of Vandecasteele and Djalal, still requires the approval of the lower house of the Belgian Parliament.
The agreement between Iran and Belgium has been criticized by several human rights organizations, such as Amnesty. According to Amnesty, the failure of European administrations has partly led to Iran continuing to pressurize with imprisoned bystanders.
They demand the cancellation of the contract Radio Free Europe media including 11 Iranian human rights organizations. In addition, the agreement has been opposed in a demonstration in Belgium.
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian held a press conference on the Iran nuclear deal in Tehran, Iran on June 25, 2022.
in Iran the exact number of detained foreigners is not known.
Earlier in July Iran, for example, claimed to have detained several foreigners for espionage. However, Britain denied the information regarding the British diplomat. Instead, the Polish researcher was confirmed as arrested, but already in September 2021.
Several countries also keep information about their imprisoned citizens secret due to negotiations on their release.
Previously For example, a British-Iranian aid worker has been released among the foreigners imprisoned by Iran Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. He was imprisoned in Iran in 2016 on suspicion of espionage.
According to the BBC Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release took place in March 2022 after Britain paid Iran a decades-old debt of around 400 million pounds, or around 470 million euros.
The debt was related to tanks ordered from Britain in the 1970s, of which only a part was delivered to Iran.
Before his return to Britain, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was allowed to serve his sentence under ankle bracelet monitoring due to the corona pandemic. He had to stay within 300 meters of his parents’ home in Tehran.
Read more: BBC: British-Iranian aid worker freed in Iran made it to Britain
Read more: “110 executions is certainly a lot, but only a small part” – Iran’s foreign opposition also wants President Ebrahim Raisi to be prosecuted for the 1988 mass executions
Read more: Iran arrested tourists and sent them to a notorious prison – do you dare to travel to Tehran now?
#International #politics #Iran #pressures #Western #countries #imprisoning #spying #citizens #life #sentence #Sweden #raised #concerns #reactions
