July 29, 2022
The families of a number of Americans detained in Iran and in other countries are stepping up pressure on President Biden to press for their freedom.
Saying that quiet lobbying of the administration has produced only limited results, the families are urging Biden to make the issue a higher priority and for US officials to arrange prisoner swaps with foreign governments.
Two Americans detained overseas – two-time Olympic gold medal-winning basketball star Brittney Griner in Russia and Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi in Iran – have made separate public pleas to Biden in recent days asking him to take action to end their captivity.
Griner sent a handwritten letter while Namazi wrote an oped that was published in The New York Times.
The US government has not disclosed the number of Americans it knows to be detained abroad. The James W. Foley Legacy Foundation lists 64 US citizens, dual nationals and green cards holders detained wrongfully in 20 countries: Afghanistan, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Mali, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Uganda, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela and Yemen.
Neda Shargi, sister of Iranian-American businessman Emad Shargi, detained in 2015 while visiting his family in Tehran, said, “Even though individual cases are different, we know that what the president needs to do is the same for all of us. We are stronger together than in our individual advocacy for our loved ones.”
Some families have tried to make their efforts more visible, launching the Bring Our Families Home Campaign and even demonstrating outside the White House.
Biden has a presidential envoy for hostage affairs at the State Department, Roger Carstens.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month held a video call with families of detained Americans, while Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan held a similar session last year.
Some of the families have said they appreciate what they see as increased attention from the Biden Administration, but note that they are mostly hearing sympathy rather than getting a clear roadmap for action.
Namazi, in his New York Times essay, said the Biden Administration’s approach to freeing detainees in Iran has “failed spectacularly so far.” He wrote: “Unless the president intervenes immediately, we are likely to languish in this abyss for the foreseeable future.”
Opponents of prisoner swaps inside and outside the US government have said such action simply incentivizes more hostage-taking overseas and does not end the problem.