CNN
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Iran’s longest-held American prisoner has made an emotional plea to US President Joe Biden to place the “liberty of harmless Individuals above politics” and ramp up efforts to safe his launch, in an unprecedented interview with CNN from inside Iran’s infamous Evin jail.
“I stay deeply apprehensive that the White Home simply doesn’t respect how dire our scenario has turn into,” stated Siamak Namazi, talking by telephone with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.
His voice sometimes choking up, Namazi added, “the actual fact that I’ve chosen to take this threat and seem on CNN from Evin jail ought to inform you how dire my scenario has turn into by this level.”
American prisoner describes situations inside Iranian jail
Namazi, 51, was arrested in 2015, when he was on a enterprise journey to Iran, in what the UN has described as an “arbitrary detention.” He was charged with having “relations with a hostile state,” referring to the US, the place Namazi is a twin Iranian-US nationwide.
The US has accused Iran of taking Namazi and different imprisoned international nationals in Iran “hostage.”
Addressing Biden instantly, he stated: “I implore you, sir, to place the lives and liberty of harmless Individuals above all of the politics concerned and to simply do what’s mandatory to finish this nightmare and produce us residence.”
Namazi is one in every of three Americans detained in Tehran’s Evin jail, which is understood for its lengthy file of human rights abuses, and is seen as an emblem of authoritarian rule in Iran.
The 2 different American-Iranian prisoners in Evin jail are Emad Sharghi, a businessman, and Morad Tahbaz, a 66-year-old environmentalist. Each have been first arrested in 2018.
Final June, The New York Instances printed an opinion piece by Namazi blasting Biden’s bid to rescue US prisoners in Iran as having “failed spectacularly.” He held a seven-day starvation strike this January, and wrote an open letter to Biden calling on him to ship on a promise to carry them residence.
Within the CNN interview on Thursday, Namazi accused the previous US administration of President Barack Obama of “abandoning” him in 2016 negotiations, when the administration secured the discharge of 4 different US prisoners held in Iran – together with the Washington Put up’s Jason Rezaian – after signing the landmark 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
“After I’m there in that closet-sized room, on their own, there was one factor I held as true, and that’s that the US authorities is preventing to launch me,” he advised CNN, reflecting on the primary weeks of his detention.
He claimed that the previous Secretary of State John Kerry promised to free him inside “weeks.”
“I simply know I used to be deserted. I do know I used to be promised that the US authorities will launch me weeks later,” he stated. “I’m perpetually three weeks away from a freedom that’s completely elusive.”
In unprecedented interview from Tehran jail, American prisoner speaks with CNN
A White Home spokesperson on Thursday condemned Iran’s imprisonment of US prisoners, saying it was inhumane and opposite to worldwide norms. The spokesperson stated the US was dedicated to securing the liberty of US residents wrongfully detained abroad, and was in common contact with Namazi’s household.
The Iranian authorities had not responded to CNN’s request for remark by the point of publication.
The US and different Western nations commonly accuse Tehran of holding twin nationals as political pawns in negotiations with the West. Final March, British-Iranian support employee Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was launched after six years of detention in Iran. It got here because the UK settled a decades-old £400 million debt owed to Iran — Tehran has denied it was linked to the prisoner launch.
Hopes for the discharge of US-Iranian prisoners have floundered in current months, as negotiations between Tehran and Washington over the revival of the nuclear deal — which former President Donald Trump pulled out of in 2018 — got here to a standstill.
Below the deal, Iran curbed its uranium enrichment program in trade for sanctions reduction.
Negotiating groups from Tehran and Washington haven’t convened for multilateral, oblique talks in almost a 12 months. A bloody regime crackdown on protests sparked by the loss of life of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini final 12 months additionally seems to have dealt the talks a crippling blow.
Final October, Namazi’s father Baquer Namazi, 85, was allowed to go away Iran on medical grounds, after the federal government lifted his years-long journey ban. Baquer Namazi is a former UNICEF official who suffers from a coronary heart situation. Each father and son have been charged with collaborating with the US authorities in 2015.
Siamak Namazi was given a 10-day furlough to see his father earlier than the 85-year-old returned to the US.
“They allowed him to go away, to affix the remainder of our household and to obtain the care that he wanted for his life-threatening situation,” Siamak Namazi advised CNN. “I can solely hope that they summon that very same spirit of humanity to do what is required on their half, in order that the remainder of us — Morad, Emad and I — will also be reunited with our households, and to begin placing this darkish previous behind us.”
Addressing Biden instantly, he stated: “I implore you, sir, to place the lives and liberty of harmless Individuals above all of the politics concerned and to simply do what’s mandatory to finish this nightmare and produce us residence.”
Following the interview, Siamak Namazi’s father and brother, in addition to members of the family of the opposite detainees, echoed his name for Biden to satisfy with them.
“There is no such thing as a substitute for listening to firsthand what now we have been by way of,” Baquer Namazi stated in his first public remarks since his launch from Iran.
He stated he was “very, very proud” of his son, however on the similar time was “very, very unhappy” and “very indignant that there’s a risk to finish this distress and politics is overriding humanism.”
Babak Namazi stated his brother’s dangerous choice to talk to CNN “makes me proud” and in addition “simply shatters my coronary heart.”
“He got here with this extremely courageous choice just some days in the past out of desperation,” Babak Namazi stated. “We’re involved. There’s no different option to say it. I can’t think about what he will need to have gone by way of and the way determined he’s feeling.”