Iran’s Human Rights Staff Chief Claims: We Have No Dual-National Prisoners
Kazem Gharibabadi, secretary of the Human Rights Headquarters of Iran’s Judiciary, claiming that “we do not legally recognize dual citizenship,” asserted “we do not have dual-national prisoners.”
These statements come while several dual-national citizens, including Siamak and Baquer Namazi, Nazanin Zaghari, Anoosheh Ashoori, Jamshid Sharmahd, Ahmad Reza Jalali, and Nahid Taghavi, are imprisoned or banned from leaving Iran.
Richard Ratcliffe, husband of Nazanin Zaghari – one of the dual-national prisoners in Iran – told Voice of America that in recent years, the Islamic Republic has taken more dual-national citizens as hostages than in the past in order to extract concessions and money from European governments.
According to IRNA news agency citing the Judiciary’s Media Center, Gharibabadi on Wednesday, December 1, also called for the release of Iranians arrested abroad for violating U.S. sanctions.
He said some imprisoned Iranians abroad are in a “tragic situation” and “we will intervene immediately.”
The United States and its allies say the Islamic Republic uses detained foreign citizens or dual-national Iranians as leverage in negotiations with Western countries.
The U.S. State Department has repeatedly condemned the arbitrary and unlawful detention of American citizens and nationals of other countries, including dual-national Iranians, by the Islamic Republic’s government with the aim of extortion and extracting concessions from other nations, and has called for their immediate and unconditional release.
Source: Voice of America
