U.S. citizen Siamak Namazi, jailed by Iran, begins a hunger strike : NPR

Siamak Namazi, shown in this photo ahead of his 2015 imprisonment, has started a one particular-week hunger strike in Iran to mark seven yrs considering that he was remaining out of a prisoner swap that happened when the Iran nuclear offer went into result.

Namazi Relatives

cover caption

toggle caption

Namazi Family

Siamak Namazi, proven in this photo prior to his 2015 imprisonment, has started a just one-7 days starvation strike in Iran to mark seven yrs due to the fact he was remaining out of a prisoner swap that occurred when the Iran nuclear deal went into impact.

Namazi Household

On the seventh anniversary of his staying left driving in a U.S.-Iran jail swap, an American jailed in Iran is commencing a 7 days-prolonged starvation strike on Monday. Siamak Namazi, an Iranian American businessman, is pushing Iran and the U.S. to make a offer to free him.

In a letter to President Biden introduced by his attorney, Namazi, 51, states he has the “unenviable title of the longest held Iranian American hostage in record.” He claims his captors take pleasure in taunting him about that. He ideas to be on a hunger strike for the following seven times.

“Siamak continues to be behind bars in Iran’s notorious Evin Jail, in which he has endured extended solitary confinement, denial of access to medical care, and actual physical and psychological torture,” in accordance to a press launch issued by Namazi’s lawyer, Jared Genser.

Namazi was arrested in October 2015 on a enterprise trip to Iran. He and his father Baquer Namazi, a retired UNICEF official who was detained when striving to go to his son in 2016, ended up both of those convicted in Iran on prices of cooperating with a hostile federal government, that means the United States.

Very last 12 months, the ever more frail elder Namazi was equipped to depart Iran to get medical therapy.

Siamak Namazi was still left out of a prisoner swap that took put when the Iran nuclear offer went into influence in 2016. He was also excluded from subsequent offers.

The U.S. has regularly stated it is performing to absolutely free Namazi and other People in america it suggests are unjustly held by Iran. They incorporate Emad Shargi, who was arrested in Iran in 2018, and Morad Tahbaz, detained there the very same calendar year.

In the letter to President Biden conveyed by his attorney, Namazi suggests, “All I want sir, is 1 minute of your days’ time for the up coming 7 times devoted to wondering about the tribulations of the U.S. hostages in Iran” — an obvious reference to himself and the other two American prisoners. “Just a single moment of your time for every year of my existence that I lost in Evin prison. For that reason, I will deny myself foods for the very same 7 times, in the hope that by executing so you won’t deny me this smaller ask for.”

Secretary of Condition Antony Blinken explained in December that he works on the concern every single working day. “It really is a No. 1 precedence to convey People everywhere who are remaining unjustly detained, to provide them household, to get them again with their families,” he advised CBS News.