Swedish-Iranian at grave risk of execution in Iran
Dear Foreign Minister Stenergard:
I write to respectfully urge you to call on the appropriate authorities to immediately halt the imminent execution of Dr. Ahmadreza Djalali, an Iranian-Swedish scholar of disaster medicine wrongfully sentenced to death in Iran. I seek your urgent intervention for a prisoner swap to free Dr. Djalali.
Dr. Djalali is a disaster medicine scholar and scientist who has held academic positions at Karolinska Institute, in Sweden; the Università del Piemonte Orientale, in Italy; and Vrije Universiteit Brussel, in Belgium. In December 2020, he was awarded a SAR Harvard Fellowship at Harvard University, in the United States, a position he has not been allowed to take up.
Dr. Djalali is arbitrarily detained in Tehran’s Evin prison. He has heart arrhythmia, anemia and high blood pressure, for which he has been denied timely and adequate access to health care. His health deteriorated further following his hunger strike from 26 June to 4 July 2024, which, according to his wife Vida Mehrannia, he underwent in protest at his arbitrary detention and at being “left behind” following a prisoner exchange deal between Iran and Sweden on 15 June. She expressed her fear about his fate following the swap, which resulted in the release of former Iranian official Hamid Nouri, sentenced to life imprisonment by a Swedish court in relation to his role in the 1988 prison massacres in Iran, in exchange for two Swedish nationals.
In May of 2022 the Iranian authorities threatened to carry out Dr. Djalali’s execution for the third time. Iranian authorities arrested Dr. Djalali in April 2016 while he was traveling to participate in a series of workshops hosted by universities in Tehran and Shiraz. On October 21, 2017, Dr. Djalali was convicted and sentenced to death for “corruption on earth” (ifsad fil-arz), based on unsubstantiated allegations that he had provided intelligence to Israeli authorities. Dr. Djalali has disputed the allegations, asserting that his ties to the international academic community are the basis of his prosecution. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found in a 2017 opinion that he was arbitrarily detained and called for his immediate release. SAR understands that Dr. Djalali has been denied the right to appeal his conviction and sentence, denied access to appropriate medical care for numerous health complications that worsened while he was in solitary confinement, denied access to his lawyer and his family in Iran, and barred from making calls to his wife and children in Sweden.
Absent additional information, the facts as described suggest that Dr. Djalali’s arrest, conviction, and sentencing are a flagrant disregard for international standards of academic freedom, due process, fair trial, and humane treatment of prisoners, as guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a party.Dr. Djalali and his family have been living a nightmare for the past eight years. His life must be saved. He must be released. I therefore respectfully urge you to do everything in your power to halt the execution and secure Dr. Djalali’s release and safe return to Sweden and to his wife and two children.We appreciate your attention to this life-and-death matter and look forward to your reply.
The signatures will be sent to the Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maria Malmer Stenergard.
Credit: Handout
Scholars At Risk, Student Campaign at UiO Contact the author of the petition