IRAN - Sweden. Ahmadreza Djalali at Imminent Risk of Execution

IRAN - Ahmadreza Djalali

05 May 2022 :

Ahmadreza Djalali at Imminent Risk of Execution. The international community should react in time.
According to Iranian state media, Iranian-Swedish death row prisoner, Dr Ahmadreza Djalali will be executed by May 21, within two weeks.
The scheduled execution which is in reaction to the trial of Hamid Noury for war crimes in Sweden, demonstrates once again that the Islamic Republic of Iran uses the death penalty as an extortion and pressure tool on Western countries. Kazem Gharibabadi, the secretary of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights and deputy chief of the Iranian Judiciary’s International Affairs had threatened on May 2 that the sentences of individuals linked to Sweden would be carried out.
Iran Human Rights calls on the International community once again to stop Ahamdreza Djalali’s execution with timely action.
According to state-run ISNA, the death sentence of Dr Ahmadreza Djalali, a dual national researcher currently on death row for espionage charges, is scheduled to be carried out by the end of the Iranian month of Ordibehesht (May 21).
Ahmadreza Djalali was living in Sweden since 2009 and is a dual Swedish-Iranian national who was a physician crisis management researcher working at the Karolinska Institutet, a medical university near Stockholm. He was also teaching at universities in Italy and Belgium.
Ahmadreza had travelled to Iran at the official invitation of the University of Tehran when he was arrested in April 2016. Initially charged with “collaborating with hostile States”, he was later charged with “efsad-fil-arz (corruption on earth) through espionage for Israel” by the Revolutionary Court of Tehran. The charge was also upheld by the Supreme Court.
Ahmadreza Djalali was arrested by Ministry of Intelligence forces on 24 April 2016 while driving to Karaj. He spent three months in the Ministry’s detention centre where he was subjected to physical and psychological torture and pressure to make false self-incriminating confessions. His forced confessions were aired on national television, and were used as evidence of his guilt at trial.
Ahmadreza’s mother previously told Iran Human Rights: “They threatened Ahmadreza and told him that if he didn’t cooperate with them, they would kill his children in Sweden. They kept him in a solitary cell full of cockroaches and ants for a long time. He was blindfolded and constantly cursed at and humiliated throughout his interrogations in Ward 209 of Evin Prison.”
The threat of Ahmadreza’s execution in retaliation for the trial of an Islamic Republic official in Sweden shows that the Iranian government is using the death penalty as a political tool to achieve its goals. Iran Human Rights warns of the imminent risk to Ahmadreza Djalali’s life should the international community not react in time. According to the 2021 Annual Report on the Death Penalty in Iran, at least 13 people were executed on the security charges of efsad-fil-arz (corruption on earth), moharebeh (enmity against God) and baghy (armed rebellion).
On May 3, Sweden’s foreign minister has expressed extreme worries over reports about the imminent execution of a Swedish-Iranian scientist jailed in Iran.
In a tweet on Wednesday, Ann Linde reacted to “extremely worrying media reports today that Iran may carry out the death penalty on Ahmadreza Djalali (Jalali)” in the next two weeks.
She said Sweden and the European Union condemn the death penalty and demand that Djalali be released, adding that “We have repeatedly stated this to Iranian representatives. We are in contact with Iran.”
Iran’s semi-official news agency ISNA broke the news earlier in the day, quoting an unnamed official that Djalali was found guilty of “espionage for the Zionist regime” and his death sentence has now been confirmed by the Supreme Court.
Djalali was arrested when he accepted an invitation by a university to visit Iran in 2016. Authorities accused the researcher of espionage – a charge they often use against foreigners and dual nationals that they want to hold as a bargaining chip. Later, Djalali was sentenced to death as Iran tried to ramp up pressure on European countries to free individuals arrested for terrorist activities or on violations of human rights.
The ISNA report also referred to one of these individuals, Hamid Nouri, who was on trial in Sweden until this week, saying that his arrest was meant to put pressure on Iran to release Djalali.
Sweden arrested Nouri, now 61, upon his arrival in Sweden at Stockholm Airport in 2019 and in August 2021put him on trial over the mass execution and torture of political prisoners at Gohardasht Prison in Iran in July and August 1988.
On the Djalali case see also HoC 03/08/2019; 03/08/2019; 21/08/2019; 18/12/2019; 25/11/2020; 01/12/2020; 02/12/2020; 16/12/2020; 18/12/2020; 18/03/2021; 30/03/2021; 15/04/2021; 09/04/2022; 02/05/2022.