March 26, 2021
Ahmad-Reza Djalali, a dual national Swedish-Iranian imprisoned in Iran since 2016, is in critical condition and near death after months of prolonged solitary confinement, UN human rights specialists said March 18.
“Djalali’s situation is truly horrific,” they said. In an appeal calling on Iran to release him, they said he had been held in solitary confinement for more than 100 days, with prison officials shining bright lights in his cell round the clock to deprive him of sleep.
“Medical issues have prevented him from eating properly, resulting in dramatic weight loss,” said the eight, including the UN special rapporteurs on the human rights situation in Iran, on arbitrary executions, on arbitrary detentions and on torture.
“His situation is so difficult that he reportedly has trouble speaking. We are shocked and distressed by the cruel mistreatment of Mr. Djalali.”
Djalali, a medical doctor and lecturer at the Karolinska Institute in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, was arrested in Iran in 2016 and later convicted of espionage, accused of providing information to Israel to help it assassinate nuclear scientists. Iran’s Supreme Court in 2017 upheld his death sentence.
There is a suspicion that Djalali may be under such harsh treatment because the Islamic Republic wishes to trade him for Hamid Abbasi, who was arrested in Sweden two years ago and charged with five counts related to the mass execution of dissidents, mostly members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq, in 1988. He served as a prosecutor at Rajai Shahr prison at the time.
His trial had been delayed by the coronavirus epidemic, but is now scheduled to resume June 8 and may run until next February. The prosecution has indicated it will call more than 30 witnesses.
Sweden, like many other Western states, operates under a doctrine that says it can try people for major human rights violations that occurred in other countries.
