University of Copernicus Professor Imprisoned in Iran; Warsaw Responds
A spokesperson for the Copernicus University in Poland confirmed on Thursday, July 7, in an exclusive interview with Radio Farda that one of the university’s professors has been imprisoned in Iran for approximately one year.
Martin Czyzewski, spokesperson for the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Poland, told Radio Farda on Thursday: “Unfortunately, I can confirm this information. But this is not new information. Three professors from our university were arrested in September 2021. Two of them were released, but one of our professors remains imprisoned in Iran. We are in constant contact with the Polish Foreign Ministry and also with this professor’s family.”
The Iranian state news agency IRNA, the Farsi News Agency, close to the Revolutionary Guards, and Iranian state television on Wednesday released a video produced by Revolutionary Guards intelligence showing that the deputy British ambassador in Tehran and several other individuals are accused of “espionage” and soil sampling from military areas.
According to claims in this video, another foreigner named Matusz Walczak, who was a university professor in Poland and had traveled to Iran as a tourist, was also among these individuals.
Mr. Walczak and three of his colleagues are accused in this state television news report of soil sampling from a desert area in Iran during a scientific exchange program. Iranian state television states that their action coincided precisely with a missile test by the Revolutionary Guards in Kerman Province.
Now the Copernicus University in Poland has confirmed that Mr. Walczak, detained in Iran since last summer, has not left the country but was sentenced to three years in prison by the court and is currently serving his sentence.
According to the university’s spokesperson, the decision was made by the university and the Polish Foreign Ministry to keep this incident confidential: “We wanted to help our Foreign Ministry and our university professor in this regard.”
The Polish Foreign Ministry also in a brief statement released on Thursday described Mr. Walczak as “a highly respected scientist” and states that he has had access to consular and legal services in Iran. The ministry meanwhile states that no further information from this file is to be released.
The Copernicus University spokesperson told Radio Farda regarding access to Mr. Walczak: “We are not in direct contact with him; we speak with Polish diplomats in Tehran. And they have managed to meet with him twice.”
In the Revolutionary Guards intelligence video, it stated that “diplomats,” including a senior British diplomat and the wife of an Austrian cultural attaché, were detected and identified by Revolutionary Guards drones during “soil sampling from a restricted area” in Iran’s Central Desert.
However, the soil sampling charge has been brought against the Polish university professor and these individuals at a time when, according to Jeffrey Lewis, an expert at the James Martin Center in Monterey, California, very little information can be obtained from the chemical composition of soil samples after some time has passed since military exercises.
Mr. Lewis stated: “Therefore I really do not see any significant value in obtaining soil samples (in Iran) and I believe that this (event) is probably the work of an overzealous security service rather than the deputy British ambassador trying to engage in some kind of intelligence operation.”
Simon Shercliff, the British ambassador in Tehran, also wrote on Thursday in a Twitter message: “These reports that our deputy ambassador is currently detained are quite interesting… He left Iran at the end of his posting last December [more than six months ago].”
The Islamic Republic government in recent years has arrested several foreign or dual-national citizens on various charges including “espionage, cooperation with foreign security institutions and actions against the system,” and has exchanged some of them with prisoners affiliated with the Islamic Republic abroad.
Due to such actions in recent years, the Iranian government has repeatedly been accused of implementing a policy known as “hostage diplomacy.”
The name Matusz Walczak is being added to the long list of foreigners imprisoned in Iran at a time when the Belgian Parliament’s Foreign Policy Committee on Wednesday, July 6, gave the green light to an “agreement” with Iran for prisoner exchange between the two countries, an agreement that has provoked severe protests from activists and human rights organizations.
Source: Radio Farda
