Germany – Zeit, November 10, 2024
The German-Iranian Nahid Taghavi is a political hostage of Iran, says her daughter Mariam Claren. Other countries are better at freeing their citizens.
Interview:
The Federal Foreign Office does not disclose how many German citizens are still imprisoned in Iran following the execution of Jamshid Sharmahd. But one name is public: Nahid Taghavi, a German-Iranian architect and women’s rights activist. Her daughter, Mariam Claren, made sure of that. Taghavi was arrested in Iran on October 16, 2020 – at the time, she lived alternately in Tehran for six months and in Cologne for six months. Since then, her daughter has been publicly fighting for her release.
ZEIT ONLINE: Ms. Claren, what have you heard from your mother since the execution of Jamshid Sharmahd last week?
Mariam Claren: My mother has reacted like a mother: she is mainly worried about me. I am close friends with Jamshid Sharmahd’s daughter, Gazelle Sharmahd. I also broke the news to her. That was an agreement between us, as she lives in the USA with a time difference of several hours. When I saw the news about her father, I called her immediately so that she wouldn’t see it anywhere else. That was terrible. My mother senses how much I’m suffering from the situation too. She is the stronger of the two of us.
ZEIT ONLINE: Since the end of September, your mother has no longer been in Evin prison, but under house arrest in her apartment in Tehran. What does that mean for her everyday life?
Claren: My mother has a lot of health problems, which we attribute particularly to her first year in prison in solitary confinement. She had to sleep on a stone floor for more than 200 days and didn’t get any daylight. She was 66 when she was arrested and is now 70 years old. She has high blood pressure, diabetes, osteoporosis and several herniated discs. That is why she is occasionally granted time off to receive medical treatment outside prison. At first, this sounds as if she can move around freely, but she wears an electronic ankle bracelet and is only allowed to stay within a radius of 1,000 meters of her home. Every visit to the doctor has to be approved in advance. So she is actually only in a larger prison. The last few times her leave was abruptly and arbitrarily cut short, even in the middle of medical treatment. She has to fear being taken away again every day.
ZEIT ONLINE: In the past, you have repeatedly described your mother as a pawn of the Iranian regime. What do you attribute this to?
Claren: Before my mother was arrested, I didn’t even know the term hostage diplomacy. It was only when I networked with other families whose relatives were also imprisoned in Iran that I realized: The regime in Iran keeps arresting foreign nationals and dual nationals and uses them as bargaining chips. A year ago, I created a timeline: What was Iran’s relationship with the West like and how did my mother’s case develop? In the summer of 2022, she was granted a prison leave for medical reasons for the first time. This was canceled shortly after Annalena Baerbock called for a UN fact-finding mission to investigate the crackdown on the protests in Iran. The second furlough earlier this year was finally canceled after the UN mission’s mandate was extended. That’s why I say my mother is a bargaining chip.
ZEIT ONLINE: Why has this execution of Sharmahd happened right now?
Claren: I would have bet on something like this not happening now, with the US elections and the conflict between Iran and Israel. At the same time, Massud Peseshkian, a supposedly moderate president, was appointed in the summer to signal that Iran was ready to talk to the West. Now, with this execution, the regime has once again shown how unpredictable it is.
Olaf Scholz never mentioned the word hostage, nor my mother’s name.
ZEIT ONLINE: Gazelle Sharmahd accuses the German government of having done too little for her father. She recently called for all relations with Iran to be severed. Do you share this view?
Claren: I have a lot of sympathy for Gazelle. She fought for her father for four years, leaving everything behind to do so. As a human rights activist, I think it is right to break off relations with Iran. As the daughter of a German citizen who is in prison there, I wonder what that would mean for my mother. So far, Germany has tried quiet diplomacy, i.e. keeping all channels open and talking to the Iranians. The result is now a dead German citizen. Other countries have done better. Five Americans, two Austrians and several French citizens have recently been released from Iran.
You have to ask yourself whether the way Germany conducts diplomacy is working.
