October 30, 2020
The Islamic Republic has arrested a dual German-Iranian citizen, adding a German national to the many other dual national Europeans being detained.
The arrest has political implications because Germany has become very aroused in the past when Germans have been arrested in Iran. The arrest threatens to make Germany much more critical of Iran. No German has been jailed in Iran for several years.
Some suspect that such arrests are made by hardliners expressly to anger foreign countries and make it harder for the Islamic Republic to conduct normal relations with them.
Maryam Keralan, the daughter of 66-year-old Iranian-German dual citizen Nahid Taghavi, spoke out after her mother was detained by Iranian security forces at her home in Tehran October 16. The daughter said she has no information on her mother’s fate.
“No sign of life from my mother for seven days! I demand clarification, I demand intervention, I demand her release! #FreeNahid,” Keralan, who lives in Germany, wrote on Twitter.
In an interview with Radio Farda, Keralan said her uncles had gone to Evin Prison to deliver Taghavi’s medicines, but were not allowed to do so, but were told she was in solitary.
Furthermore, the lawyer hired to defend her mother has also failed to meet his client so far, Keralan said.
Speaking to Radio Farda, Keralan asserted that her 66-year-old mother was retired and had no political background. The daughter said the family emigrated to Germany in 1984, where her mother was an architect. After retiring in 2005, she began traveling to Iran, living there about half of each year.
When Taghavi’s brothers got no answer to their telephone calls, they traveled from Shiraz to Tehran. They had a key to her apartment. When they entered, they found it turned upside down. A neighbor told them the police had taken her away.
A resident of Cologne, Germany, Taghavi was at her home in Tehran when Iranian intelligence agents stormed her residence October 16. They took away Taghavi without a warrant or charging her.
The Frankfurt-based International Society for Human Rights (ISHR) said October 23 that Taghavi is being held in solitary confinement at Evin Prison.
ISHR spokesman Martin Lessenthin said, “The Islamic Republic pursues political goals with the imprisonment of persons with dual nationalities — they are thus a political bargaining chip for the regime.”
The Human Rights Activists News Agency, HRANA, reported October 19 that Taghavi had recently undergone surgery and was suffering from high blood pressure. “The intelligence officers confiscated some of her personal effects, including her laptop, cellphone, and books, during this detention,” HRANA said.
Taghavi has lived in Cologne since 1983 and was granted German citizenship in 2003. For the past 15 years, she has commuted between Tehran and Germany without any problem.