In an extraordinary interview with CNN from within Iran’s notorious Evin prison, the longest-held American prisoner in Iran made an emotional appeal to US President Joe Biden to put the “liberty of innocent Americans above politics” and step up efforts to achieve his release.
Siamak Namazi told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour over the phone, “I continue to be very concerned that the White House really doesn’t understand how serious our situation has become.
Namazi continued, “The sheer fact that I’ve chosen to take this risk and speak on CNN from Evin prison should tell you how grave my condition has become by this moment.” His voice would occasionally choke.
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Iranian prison circumstances are described by an American prisoner at 2:48 – Source: CNN
Namazi, 51, was detained in what the UN has called a “arbitrary detention” in 2015 while he was on a business trip to Iran. The US, where Namazi holds dual citizenship with Iran, was cited as the “enemy state” in the indictment against him.
The US claims that Iran is holding Namazi and other foreigners who are detained there “hostage.”
“I ask you, sir, to put the lives and liberty of innocent Americans above all of the politics involved and to just do what’s necessary to stop this nightmare and send us home,” he concluded, addressing Biden directly.
One of the three Americans being held in Tehran’s Evin prison, which has a long history of violating human rights and is regarded as a symbol of authoritarian control in Iran, is Ad Ollah Namazi.
The other two American-Iranian inmates in Evin prison are 66-year-old environmentalist Morad Tahbaz and businessman Emad Sharghi. Both were initially detained in 2018.
Siamak Namazi, 51, the American detained in Iran for the longest, has pleaded with US President Joe Biden to secure his release.
Siamak Namazi, 51, the American detained in Iran for the longest, has pleaded with US President Joe Biden to secure his release.
Thanks to the Namazi family
In a post he wrote in June of last year, Namazi criticized Biden’s attempt to free American detainees in Iran, calling it a “spectacular failure.” In January of this year, he went on a seven-day hunger strike and sent an open letter to Biden pleading with him to keep his pledge to send the prisoners home.
In his interview with CNN on Thursday, Namazi accused the previous US administration of President Barack Obama of “abandoning” him during negotiations in 2016, when the administration secured the release of four other US prisoners held in Iran, including Jason Rezaian of the Washington Post, following the historic 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
“While I’m there in that closet-sized room, all alone, there was one thing I held as true, and that is that the US government is working to release me,” he told CNN, reminiscing on the early weeks of his arrest.
He asserted that John Kerry, a former secretary of state, pledged to release him in “weeks.”
“I only know that I was left behind. I understand that the US government promised to free me a few weeks later,” he said. “A freedom that is forever illusive is always three weeks away from me.”
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CNN is given an extraordinary interview by an American prisoner in Tehran.
20:43 – Credit CNN
On Thursday, a White House representative denounced Iran’s captivity of US captives, calling it barbaric and against the rules of the international community. The spokeswoman claimed that the US was dedicated to securing the release of American citizens unjustly held abroad and that it was in constant communication with Namazi’s family.
By the time this article was published, the Iranian government had not responded to CNN’s request for comment.
Iran is frequently charged by the US and other Western nations with using dual nationals as bargaining chips in talks with the West. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian relief worker, was released from Iran’s prison in March of last year after spending six years there. It happened at the same time as the UK paid off an old £400 million debt to Iran, which Tehran has claimed had anything to do with the prisoner release.
As talks between Tehran and Washington over the resuscitation of the nuclear deal, which former President Donald Trump walked out of in 2018, stalled, hopes for the release of US-Iranian inmates have waned recently.
Iran’s uranium enrichment program was limited as part of the agreement in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.
On October 17, 2022, a glimpse of the famed Evin prison’s entrance may be seen in Tehran, Iran.
On October 17, 2022, a glimpse of the famed Evin prison’s entrance may be seen in Tehran, Iran.
Reuters/Majid Asgaripour/WANA
About a year has passed since Tehran and Washington last met for multilateral, indirect negotiations. The discussions also appear to have been severely hampered by the brutal regime assault on protests that were started by the killing of Mahsa Amini, 22, last year.
As the government revoked his long-standing travel ban in October of last year, Namazi’s father, Baquer Namazi, 85, was permitted to leave Iran for medical reasons. The former UNICEF employee Baquer Namazi has a cardiac issue. In 2015, charges of working with the US government against both the father and the son were brought.
Before Siamak Namazi’s 85-year-old father returned to the US, he was granted a 10-day leave of absence to visit him.
Siamak Namazi told CNN that “they allowed him to depart, to join the rest of our family and to obtain the care that he needed for his life-threatening illness”. In order for Morad, Emad, and I to be reunited with our families and begin putting this troubling history behind us, they must muster the same spirit of humanity to take the necessary action on their end.
“I ask you, sir, to put the lives and liberty of innocent Americans above all of the politics involved and to just do what’s necessary to stop this nightmare and send us home,” he concluded, addressing Biden directly.