Iran Detains Another American, Complicating Prisoner Swap
Amid talks of a prisoner swap deal with the United States, the Iranian regime has detained another American citizen, further complicating efforts to lower tensions.
Amid talks of a prisoner swap deal with the United States, the Iranian regime has detained another American citizen, further complicating efforts to lower tensions.
Semafor news website in Washington DC cited three people briefed on the case as saying that the new arrest is now a crucial part of stepped-up negotiations between the two countries.
The article, published on Friday, did not disclose the identity of the American, saying that it withheld the name to avoid jeopardizing negotiations over his/her release. Previously, the US has prioritized securing the release of three Iranian Americans, businessmen Siamak Namazi and Emad Sharqi, as well as environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, held by Iran on trumped-up charges of espionage. Two individuals with US permanent residency -- Jamshid Sharmahd and Shahab Dalili -- are also imprisoned in Iran.
The negotiations -- which have taken place without public announcements in Oman as well as other countries -- are geared towards facilitating the exchange of Iranians convicted of crimes in Western countries for the release of US nationals held hostage in Iran, as well as the release of billions of dollars of Iran’s funds frozen in overseas banks.
While Iran has around $20 billion frozen in Iraqi, South Korean and Japanese banks due to US sanctions, what has often been mentioned as being discussed is $7 billion in two Seoul banks.
Despite claims by several Iranian officials who have for months publicly suggested that a deal was in the making, the Biden administration said in June that it continues contacts with Tehran, but no nuclear or prisoner release agreement is imminent.
According to Semafor’s sources, the inclusion of the fourth American in the talks may prompt Tehran to raise its demands.
The Biden administration has so far declined to reply to Semafor’s inquiry about the case of the fourth American citizen, but National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan implicitly confirmed it last week during an interview on Face the Nation. “We have tried very hard to secure the release of the four unjustly detained Americans in Iran, we have done so since the day that President Biden took office,” he said on Sunday.
A person directly briefed on the case and close to one of three Iranian American families told Semafor on Thursday that “Multiple senior officials at the State Department in the last few weeks have privately emphasized that the US and Iran have already agreed the fourth American will be part of any deal and there are no delays being caused by [the person’s] inclusion.”
In the past decade, Iran's Revolutionary Guard have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on unproven allegations of espionage and breach of security, in what human rights organizations have said is essentially hostage taking to extract concessions from Western governments.
In November 1979, a group of leftist students backed by the new revolutionary government occupied the US embassy in Tehran and took 54 Americans hostage for 444 days. Later, the same strategy was used in Lebanon where multiple Westerners were taken hostage in the 1980s by militant groups linked to Tehran.
Tehran denies any policy of hostage taking and insists all foreigners are tried legally. However, it has frequently shown readiness for prisoner exchanges and receiving monetary payments and participated in swaps in the past.
In March 2022, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an Iranian-British citizen held in Iran for nearly six years, was freed along with British-Iranian businessman Anoosheh Ashoori after the UK paid a four-decade-old £400m ($522 million) debt to Iran. Iran's foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian claimed at the time that the payment by Britain had nothing to do with the release of the Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Ashoori.
The latest case was in June when two Iranian-Austrian citizens named Kamran Qaderi and Masoud Mosaheb and a Danish individual were released in the framework of a recent prisoner exchange agreement with Belgium mediated by Oman. A week earlier, Olivier Vandecasteele, a Belgian aid worker, returned to his country in exchange for the release of Assadollah Asadi, an Iranian agent disguised as a diplomat in Europe who was convicted of a terror plot in France in 2018.
A public disagreement has arisen regarding who ordered the return of the 'morality' police, which vanished from the streets following nationwide protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of hijab patrols last September.
According to Tehran's leading reformist daily, Etemad, President Ebrahim Raisi's aides have advised him against implementing any plan that could provoke people until after the next presidential election in 2025 to secure his re-election. They have even suggested indirect criticism of negative reactions to hijab violations to make a positive impression on public opinion.
However, Etemad cited an unnamed senior official of the police as saying that the hijab patrols have returned by the direct order of the president as the head of the Supreme National Security Council. The interior minister is only tasked with implementing the plan as the representative of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Law Enforcement Command.
The police official emphasized their role as the sole executor of orders from higher authorities within the government and the Interior Ministry, adding that officials shifted responsibility to the police force to shield themselves from potential criticism.
As the police blamed the presidential administration, several government officials claimed that the decision was not made by the president himself.
Ali Bahadori Jahormi, the government's spokesperson, emphasized in a twitter post that the judiciary is responsible for dealing with “social abnormalities," including civil disobedience acts like women defying the Islamic Republic's strict dress code. He stated, "It is the responsibility of the judiciary to decide how to implement the law." Vice President for Women and Family Affairs Ensieh Khazali also denied that the hijab patrols returned upon the president's order.
Tasnim news agency, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, claimed that after the publication of the official order by the president and the chief justice to reinstate the hijab police, certain government officials contacted the agency and asked them to remove the part mentioning the president.
The ultra-hardliner daily Kayhan expressed support for the police's approach in enforcing hijab regulations, warning officials against backing down from their stance merely in fear of losing “a handful of votes.”
The morality or hijab police returned to the streets of Tehran and other cities ahead of the first anniversary of Mahsa Amini's death, immediately leading to online uproar as well as a few bouts of street protests, the biggest of which broke out in the northern city of Rasht.
A video which went viral on Saturday shows Tehran's morality police arresting a teenage girl without compulsory hijab, while the girl was screaming “I’m not coming with you” as they tried to push her into their unmarked van.
People on social media have reacted to the incident saying if Iranians do not pour into the streets on the death anniversary of Amini in mid-September, the regime will tighten the noose.
Iran’s former president Mohammad Khatami also warned that the return of morality police may lead to the regime's “overthrow by itself and social collapse”. “It seems that the danger of self-overthrow, which has been talked about many times, stands out more than ever with the return of morality police."
In addition to street patrols, the regime has intensified its crackdown on celebrities who have published photos of themselves without mandatory hijab or appeared in public without head covering as an indirect threat against ordinary people.
Only this week, several actresses as well as TV and radio personalities have been given odd sentences, such as washing corpses for burial and attending counseling sessions as well as bans, as a humiliation and intimidation tactic.
Dadban, a group of pro-bono lawyers in Iran defending political prisoners and rights activists, also revealed that one of the regime’s judges in the capital Tehran – identified as Ali Omidi – has taken a prominent role in issuing heavy sentences against those who protest mandatory hijab.