An Iranian American imprisoned in Iran has started a seven-day hunger strike and appealed to United States President Joe Biden to bring him home.
Siamak Namazi made the plea on Monday in a letter to Biden on the seventh anniversary of the release of five US citizens in a prisoner exchange with Iran, choreographed to coincide with the implementation of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
Namazi was arrested in October 2015 on charges of trying to overthrow the state, accusations Namazi denies.
His father Baquer, who travelled to Iran in 2016 out of concern for his detained son, had also been arrested on espionage-related charges and released two years later but banned from travelling. He was finally allowed to leave Iran in October for medical treatment.
Namazi said in his letter he would be on a hunger strike for seven days, asking Biden to spend one minute a day for the next week thinking about the suffering of US citizens detained in Iran.
Iran’s government generally refuses to acknowledge dual citizenship and on Saturday announced the execution of a British citizen, Alireza Akbari, accused of spying for his adopted country.
Credit: aljazeera.com
