Canadian Iranian journalist and documentary filmmaker
In her first reaction to her father’s sudden execution in Iran this week, Gazelle Sharmahd was mute but spoke volumes with her silence.
Staring into a camera for a post on X, she pinned a mythological symbol evoking Iran's ancient glory onto her shirt and tied back her flowing hair - a symbol of female freedom in the crosshairs of hijab laws back home.
Speaking to Iran International, Gazelle described herself as being in flight or fight mode and not yet fully grasping the loss of her father, Jamshid Sharmahd.
“I'm not feeling anything. I'm just in shock,” she said.
She is haunted by questions and demands proof of her father’s death.
“How did they execute him? Was he poisoned? Did he die under torture?”
According to high-ranking German authorities the Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic alleged that “Jimmy died” but the lawyers of his family are still awaiting verification of what really happened.
Gazelle said her father was an activist and journalist who opposed the Islamic Republic and fought them using his expertise as a software engineer to create a website where Iranians inside the country could report human rights abuses.
He created VPNs and helped secure IP addresses so they wouldn’t get tracked by the government, Gazelle said.
Authorities accused him of terrorism for allegedly orchestrating a series of deadly bomb attacks inside Iran. He had been living in the United States for the past two decades.
Gazelle and leading human rights experts have denied the charges, saying confessions at his trial were made under duress and that his activism and criticism of the Islamic Republic made him a target.
A United Nations human rights expert in 2022 described Jamshid’s detention as arbitrary, and Amnesty International referred to his trial as a sham.
Fear beyond borders
Jamshid Sharmahd's case represents the peril faced by Iranian dissidents far beyond its borders.
In 2020, journalist Ruhollah Zam, a French citizen, was executed in Iran after being lured from Paris to Iraq under the guise of working on a story.
In February 2024, US authorities charged an Iranian national allegedly operating on behalf of the Iran to kill dissidents abroad, and two Canadian men with ties to the Hells Angels biker gang were arrested in an alleged plot to carry out assassinations in Maryland.
Outspoken human rights activist Masih Alinejad was one of them.
In 2021, the FBI thwarted an alleged kidnapping plot against Alinejad and an alleged assassination attempt the following year. The FBI said both plots were linked to Iran.
Criminal gangs operating on the behest of the Islamic Republic of Iran are behind a string of terror attacks on Israeli embassies in Europe since October 7, according to Israeli and Swedish Intelligence agencies.
Abducted in real time
Jamshid was sentenced to death in 2022 for “corruption on Earth,” sparking condemnation from human rights groups and Western governments.
The 69-year-old suffered from Parkinson’s disease and grew up in Germany and spent most of his adult life raising his family in the United States. While on a layover in Dubai in 2020, he was abducted from his hotel by Iranian agents.
Gazelle said she saw the entire kidnapping unfold from her father’s google tracker.
“We could see how his taken from his hotel room to the border to Oman to the coast of Oman. And then the tracker breaks off,” she said.
The German government announced Thursday that it would close three Islamic Republic consulates in response to the execution of the dual citizen. Germany’s foreign minister called it an assassination.
In an email to Iran International, a US State Department spokesperson said the US joins Germany in condemning his execution and supports their move in shutting down Tehran's consulates.
“Sharmahd’s execution was an abhorrent act by the Iranian regime and underscores that the record pace of unjust executions in Iran continues unabated, despite Iran’s attempts to promote a gentler face to the international community.”
Gazelle said she doesn’t need kind words and condolences and feels abandoned by both governments.
She questions why the Biden administration did not include her father in a 2023 prisoner swap that freed 5 American citizens. Now, it's too late, she lamented.
As she tries to process her loss, she said she will continue to call for justice and keep up what she described as her father’s legacy.
“He never will give up and we will never give up. You cannot break a freedom fighter.”
