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Al-Monitor – A Swedish-Iranian doctor detained by Iran is “near death” after months in solitary confinement and other “cruel mistreatment,” a group of United Nations experts said Thursday.
Ahmadreza Djalali “has been held in prolonged solitary confinement for over 100 days with the constant risk of his imminent execution laying over his head with prison officials shining bright lights in his small cell 24 hours a day, to deprive him of sleep,” said the rights experts, who include members of the UN’s working group on arbitrary detention.
Djalali, an Iranian-born lecturer at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, was arrested during a 2016 business trip to Iran. He was later charged with espionage and accused of sharing classified information with Israel’s spy agency.
In a letter written from prison in 2017, Djalali denied Iran’s espionage allegations and said he was actually being held in retaliation for refusing to use his academic connections to spy on European countries.
Following what rights groups say was a torture-induced confession, a Tehran court sentenced Djalali to death in October 2017 and Iran’s Supreme Court upheld the conviction two months later.
Djalali is currently detained in Evin prison, which houses most of Iran’s foreign detainees. His situation “is truly horrific,” the experts said, adding that Djalali has lost significant weight and reportedly has trouble speaking.
“There is only one word to describe the severe physical and psychological ill-treatment of Mr. Djalali, and that is torture,” they said, adding that Iran must cease its use of solitary confinement and impose a moratorium on the death penalty.
Iran is holding a number of foreigner or dual citizens on trumped up spying charges, likely as a form of leverage with the West. This week, a lawyer for a French tourist detained in Iran since last year said his client, Benjamin Briere, has been charged with espionage.
The US government, which is seeking a return to the landmark Iranian nuclear agreement, has called on Tehran to release a number of Americans, including Morad Tahbaz and Siamak and Baquer Namazi. Earlier this month, Iran freed British-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe from house arrest but is requiring that she return to court to face a new propaganda charge.
