Washington D.C. – RFERL, September 18, 2024
Siamak Namazi, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was arbitrarily arrested while visiting his native country of Iran for a memorial service in 2015.
Subsequently sentenced to 10 years in prison for “collaborating with a foreign government,” unclear charges he denied, Namazi ended up being the longest-held Iranian-American prisoner until his release along with four other Americans last year in a controversial prisoner exchange.
In a rare interview with RFE/RL’s Radio Farda ahead of the anniversary of his September 18, 2023, release, Namazi described the torture and interrogations he endured at Tehran’s Evin prison during his eight years of incarceration and his mixed feelings upon being freed after being held “hostage” by Iran.
“I was in disbelief. I was both very happy to be released and deeply troubled that I was being traded like a slave,” Namazi said. “I consider myself a child of Iran and an adopted child of the United States. I love both countries and tried to be a good citizen to both.”
Incredible Yet Sad
Namazi said that while the feeling of being freed “was incredible,” he was also stepping into a world that “no longer felt familiar.”
“There was also a deep sadness that it ended this way,” he said of a process in which he felt he was denied justice by a system trying to profit from his imprisonment.
“I served eight out of a 10-year sentence before being exchanged. I lost Iran in the process. Eight years of prison, filled with harsh treatments,” Namazi recalled, describing his incarceration in one of the most notoriously harsh wards of Evin prison.
“It wasn’t normal. I spent 27 months in ward ‘2A,’ where those who were detained and interrogated [know what it’s like]. I was interrogated for more than two years.”
He initially struggled to communicate in his native language, which he learned as a child, and struggled to convince his guards and fellow inmates that he was a “real” Iranian and that his treatment was unjust.
About six weeks prior to being flown out of Iran, Namazi was released from Evin prison and taken to a highly secured hotel in central Tehran.
Under constant watch by members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Namazi and the four other U.S. citizens who would be part of a prisoner swap awaited their fate under what he described as ridiculous circumstances.
“Some of their actions, you don’t know whether to laugh or cry,” he said of his IRGC guards.
The guards would not tell the prisoners where they were, and made it clear that “if anyone found out where we were, they’d move us,” Namazi said.
Iran’s judiciary had ordered that the prisoners be fitted with ankle monitors and allowed to move within a 1-kilometer radius, but the IRGC was wary that hackers would be able to determine their location.
And while the IRGC wanted no attention paid to the prisoners, when they were eventually allowed to move around, they were followed closely by IRGC members whose distinctive presence drew public attention, Namazi says.
