Iran Regime's Hostage Taking: Where Are the West and the UN?
by Majid Rafizadeh • October 9, 2021 at 5:00 am
In the hope of resurrecting the disastrous Iran nuclear deal and subsequently lifting sanctions on the ruling mullahs of Iran, the Biden administration and the European Union have been silent on the fates of foreign hostages kept in Iran's notorious prisons.
Among the current foreign citizens currently held hostage in Iran is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British mother.... Amid the ongoing nuclear talks between the Iranian regime and world powers, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps court sentenced her to yet another year in prison in April 2021.
American citizens held as prisoners in Iran include Iranian-Americans Baquer and Siamak Namazi, Morad Tahbaz, and businessman and conservationist Emad Shargi. Shargi's family has pleaded with the Biden administration to help free him.
Instead of appeasing the Iranian regime and turning a blind eye to its human rights violations, the West needs to hold the ruling mullahs of Iran accountable for detaining foreign nationals as hostages, bargaining chips and as pawns with which to extract political and economic concessions.
In the hope of resurrecting the disastrous Iran nuclear deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) and subsequently lifting sanctions on the ruling mullahs of Iran, the Biden administration and the European Union have been silent on the fates of foreign hostages kept in Iran's notorious prisons.
Some of the foreign hostages in Iran come from Western countries, including the United States, France, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
Among the current foreign citizens currently held hostage in Iran is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British mother, who, along with her then-22-month-old daughter, traveled to Iran in 2016 to visit her family for Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, after the nuclear deal had been reached and sanctions against the Islamic Republic had been lifted. As she was about to board a plane to return home to the UK, she was surrounded by officials of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and arrested.
