European Parliament Condemns Iran's Detentions, Hostage Diplomacy

“Parliament strongly condemns the deterioration of the human rights situation in Iran, and the brutal murders of women by the Iranian authorities, including the 2023 Sakharov Prize laureate Jina Mahsa Amini,” a resolution adopted Thursday by European lawmakers by 516 votes in favor, 4 against, and 27 abstentions said.

Members of the European Parliament also urged the Iranian authorities to immediately end “all discrimination against women and girls, including mandatory veiling, and to withdraw all gender discriminatory laws.”

Arbitrary detention, withholding medical treatment to prisoners, police violence, torture, capital punishment, and the alarming rise in the number of executions was also “strongly condemned” by the European Parliament.

The resolution demanded the immediate release of all victims of arbitrary detention and human rights defenders, including Nobel Peace Laureate Narges Mohammadi, political activist Sepideh Gholian (Qoliyan), women’s right activist Golrokh Iraee, labor activist Nasrin Javadi and political activist Bahareh Hedayat all of whom are held at Tehran’s Evin Prison.

The European Union needs to launch a strategy to counter the Islamic Republic’s “hostage diplomacy”, the resolution said and demanded the immediate and unconditional releases of several EU citizens held in Iran including a Swedish EU diplomat and an elderly Austrian.

What has come to be known as the Islamic Republic’s hostage diplomacy involves the arbitrary arrest of foreign nationals and dual citizens to use them as bargaining chips in dealings with western countries.

Johan Floderus, a young Swedish EU diplomat, for instance, was arrested at Tehran airport in April 2022 after what was described as a private tourist trip with friends.

Iranian authorities have accused Floderus who is also being held at Evin Prison since then of espionage, a charge they often use to justify the arrest of foreigners and dual nationals.

Iran is also holding a Swedish-Iranian doctor, Ahmadreza Djalali (Jalali). Djalali who was arrested in 2016 during an academic visit to Iran was sentenced to death in October 2017 on charge of espionage for Israel.

In April 2022 Iran tried to ramp up pressure on Sweden to free Hamid Nouri who Sweden had put on trial over the mass execution and torture of political prisoners in July and August 1988, by threatening to execute Djalali. Nouri is currently serving a life sentence in Sweden.

The 73-year-old Austrian-Iranian businessman, Massud Mossaheb who is serving a 10-year prison term for vague national security offences is another EU citizen Iran has been holding since 2019.

Despite poor health prior to his imprisonment which required regular specialist medical treatment, Mossaheb has been denied access to adequate medical care and to specialist medical professionals outside prison. 

Members of the European Parliament reiterated their call in their resolution for the initiation of criminal investigations into “crimes committed by the Iranian authorities under universal jurisdiction” while demanding designation of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as a terrorist organization and sanctions against human rights violators in Iran. These include Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi.

The European Parliament also urged the European External Action Service and member states to support the Iranian Sakharov and Nobel Prize laureates.

Prominent lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh and dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi jointly won the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize in 2012. Both have been prosecuted, imprisoned, and banned from leaving the country on charges such as “assembly and collusion [to overthrow the regime]” and propaganda against the Islamic Republic.

Prominent human rights defender Narges Mohammadi won the Nobel Peace Prize in October this year while in prison "for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.”