Now is the time to release Ahmadreza Djalali
I just received an update on the situation of KI alumnus and Swedish citizen Ahmadreza Djalali. According to information from sources inside Iran, provided by Amnesty International, the situation is unchanged. An execution is still regarded as imminent.
There are increasing concerns about his physical and mental health after having been isolated for close to four months.
Denied care
According to Amnesty International, Ahmadreza Djalali is maltreated in prison and denied adequate care. The light in the isolation cell is on 24 hours a day, he sleeps on the floor with three blankets – one under him, one on himself and one as a pillow.
This is tantamount to torture.
Statement
He has received two family visits after he was isolated on November 24, in late February and early March. Amnesty International has made the following statement:
Following conviction in a grossly unfair trial, Iranian-Swedish academic Ahmadreza Djalali remains at risk of execution at Evin prison in Iran and is being subjected to torture and other ill-treatment. He has been held in prolonged solitary confinement for nearly four months in a small cell with the lights switched on 24 hours a day, causing him great mental distress. He is forced to sleep on a blanket on the floor. He is barred from phoning his wife and children in Sweden, heightening their concerns about his health amid reports of the authorities denying him adequate care.”
What is nevertheless gratifying in this context is that Foreign Minister Ann Linde during the foreign policy debate in the Swedish Parlament on 24 February mentioned Ahmadreza Djalali’s case and then went on to say that UD, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is working for his release. Previously, Sweden has only demanded that his death penalty be commuted.
Now we must trust that diplomatic channels will work, that our voices are heard, that reason will prevail and that Ahmadreza will be released.
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