Washington D.C. – Al Monitor, October 30, 2024
Jamshid Sharmahd, 69, was executed on Monday after several years behind bars, sparking condemnation from Germany and the European Union.
“It’s terrifying to wake up to this kind of news. It’s proof that this regime is staying in power through violence, cruelty and executions,” said Sahar Aghakhani, a 30-year-old Franco-Iranian working in the health sector.
“But it’s also a message: dual nationality does not protect you against the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Sharmahd, a German citizen of Iranian descent and a US resident, had written for an Iranian opposition group’s website based abroad that strongly criticised the Islamic republic’s leadership.
Iranian authorities seized Sharmahd in 2020 while he was in the United Arab Emirates, according to his family.
Iran accused him of involvement in a deadly 2008 mosque bombing, and sentenced him to death in 2023 after what rights group Amnesty International called “forced confessions” and a “sham trial”.
Now the the families of other detainees are worried, including the wife of Iranian-Swedish academic Ahmadreza Djalali.
The resident of Sweden was arrested in Iran in 2016 and sentenced to death in 2017 on charges of spying for Israel’s Mossad. He has since been granted Swedish nationality.
“I’m really afraid,” Vida Mehrannia told AFP.
“We cannot prevent the same scenario from happening to Ahmadreza.”
‘Very chilling effect’
Several other dual nationals have been put to death since 2023.
Iran hanged Habib Chaab, an Iranian-Swedish national, on a “terrorism” conviction last year, drawing strong condemnation from Sweden.
It also executed Alireza Akbari, a former Iranian deputy defence minister who was granted British citizenship after leaving his post, last year after he was convicted of spying for Britain.
Like Sharmahd, two other critics of the Iranian leadership based abroad were “abducted”, Amnesty says.
