Iran Treats Another American Like a Pawn
As the world prepares to implement the bad Iranian nuclear deal, Iran continues to thwart international human rights norms by prosecuting Americans without due process and holding them hostage for their own political agenda.
Yet another innocent American citizen who is being wrongfully imprisoned in Iran had a substantial conviction handed down this week. Washington Post Reporter, Jason Rezaian, has been detained for over 14 months and held on trumped up charges of espionage. His trial ended in August, but the Post reports a guilty verdict was just announced on Iranian state-run TV. No specifics of his sentence have been released.
The Washington Post’s Executive Editor released a statement following Rezaian’s conviction. It reads in part:
The guilty verdict announced by Iran in the trial of The Washington Post’s Jason Rezaian represents an outrageous injustice.
Iran has behaved unconscionably throughout this case, but never more so than with this indefensible decision by a Revolutionary Court to convict an innocent journalist of serious crimes after a proceeding that unfolded in secret, with no evidence whatsoever of any wrongdoing. For now, no sentence has been announced. . . .
The contemptible end to this ‘judicial process’ leaves Iran’s senior leaders with an obligation to right this grievous wrong. Jason is a victim — arrested without cause, held for months in isolation, without access to a lawyer, subjected to physical mistreatment and psychological abuse, and now convicted without basis. He has spent nearly 15 months locked up in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison, more than three times as long than any other Western journalists.
Rezaian is just one of four innocent American citizens wrongfully held hostage in Iran. There have been early hints from Iran that Rezaian’s conviction is part of an effort to pressure the U.S. into exchanging Iranian prisoners for Rezaian, Christian American Pastor Saeed Abedini, and former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati, in addition to any information concerning the whereabouts of former FBI agent Robert Levinson.
As Pastor Saeed’s wife, Naghmeh, has said previously, these men are not collateral. They have broken no laws. Yet, Iran continues to use them as pawns in their international game of life-and-death. Iran tries to achieve international credibility while maintaining its role as the number one state sponsor of terrorism and violator of numerous human rights norms.
Republican Members of Congress are urging the Obama Administration to use Rezaian’s sham conviction as an opportunity to pause the nuclear deal and demand that Iran do the right thing by freeing the U.S. citizens it is holding hostage.
At the ACLJ, we continue to work to free American Pastor Saeed Abedini who remains in chains for Christ. He has been separated from his wife and young children for over three years now.
Enough is enough.