My first encounter with Siamak Namazi took place when I was confined to my cell in Evin Prison in Tehran. Little did I know at the time that the longest-held American hostage in Iran was being held just a few hundred meters away from where I sat on a stained and worn-out carpet, fixated on a dusty TV screen mounted on the wall. Although I couldn’t understand Farsi back then, I recognized the word “Amrika” and had come to associate the term “jasoos” with the interrogation room where it was frequently used. This thin, intellectual-looking man on the screen, with his hollow eyes glancing at the camera every few seconds, was supposedly America’s top spy? I couldn’t help but be even more incredulous when the narrator switched to footage of an elderly man with wispy white hair and a gentle face: Baquer Namazi. Dramatic music played as backlit images of father and son posing with flags and symbols of the Great Satan appeared. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) proudly claimed to have captured two dangerous American infiltrators, valiantly saving Iran from an evil, diabolical conspiracy.
Part of me wanted to groan, roll my eyes, or even laugh, but I had learned to be cautious. A deep unease settled in my gut. While the charges against the Namazis were absurd, they were also gravely serious. In a place like Iran, people are routinely executed for far less.
My first glimpse of Morad Tahbaz came through the back window of a meeting room connected to the prison duty officer’s station. Tahbaz was the primary defendant in a case involving Iran’s leading environmental-conservation NGO, and two of my cellmates were co-defendants. They had informed me that Tahbaz had been transferred from the men’s section of our IRGC-controlled interrogation unit to a place known as “the villa.” This self-contained room with a small garden annex was where the IRGC preferred to keep long-term prisoners, such as the Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian. The conditions were supposedly better there, and as a British American, Tahbaz was one of the highest-value prisoners to the IRGC. I watched Tahbaz wander aimlessly around a narrow, paved courtyard, occasionally pausing to examine a leafy potted plant before retreating indoors. There were rumors that he had survived cancer during his time in custody. Even back in 2019, whispers of a potential deal for his release circulated, though it never materialized until now.
Through conversations with lower-ranking IRGC officials, I had gleaned that there was a hierarchy of sorts among foreign prisoners when it came to their value. Fully foreign individuals were generally more valuable than dual-nationals, and Western Europeans were more valuable than Eastern Europeans or Japanese prisoners. Detainees from China were swiftly whisked away within months, while those from developing countries could expect to serve their full sentences. American and Israeli hostages commanded the highest prices and were thus the most sought after.
“At least you’re not an American” was a phrase I would occasionally hear from Iranian political prisoners attempting to encourage me not to lose hope. As an Australian researcher arrested after accepting an invitation to attend an academic conference in Iran, I ranked lower on the value chain than Siamak Namazi or Morad Tahbaz. Nevertheless, my freedom was still deemed worthy of significant concessions. I spent two years and three months in two Iranian prisons before being exchanged for three convicted IRGC terrorists held in Thailand. Like Namazi, Tahbaz, and another American hostage, Emad Shargi, who are reportedly on the verge of being released under a U.S.-Iran agreement, I was sentenced to 10 years for baseless charges of espionage.
Engaging in deals with the Islamic Republic is a sordid affair, yet it has become normalized due to the increasing frequency with which Iran employs hostage-taking to achieve its foreign-policy or even budgetary goals. Hostage diplomacy is on the rise worldwide as authoritarianism resurfaces and the perception of a declining United States grows. Iran stands out as one of the most egregious perpetrators, managing to defy international human-rights principles and basic economic laws while extracting higher and higher ransoms for its growing number of foreign hostages.
Namazi, Tahbaz, and Shargi represent the public face of Iran’s latest endeavor in the profitable business of hostage-taking. According to reports, this enterprise has secured a prisoner exchange involving Iranian nationals held in American prisons and the release of $6 billion of Iranian funds frozen in South Korean banks under sanctions. This marks the second cash-for-hostages deal between Iran and the United States in this century. The first involved $1.7 billion in frozen assets from a historical arms purchase, which the Obama administration transferred in 2016 alongside the certification of the JCPOA nuclear deal, in exchange for the official release of four American citizens, including Rezaian. The U.K. also reached a similar agreement in 2022, transferring a historical military debt of £400 million to Tehran in exchange for two British Iranian hostages.
Every time a hostage is freed, those of us who have survived Iran’s prison system collectively rejoice. Our ranks continue to grow as Iran’s hostage-taking becomes increasingly brazen. Namazi, Tahbaz, Shargi, and two other Americans whose identities have yet to be disclosed have been moved from prison to house arrest in preparation for the second phase of the deal: the transfer of $6 billion into a Qatari bank account. The Qataris are expected to act as guarantors to ensure that the Iranians utilize these funds solely for humanitarian purposes.
However, we should approach such provisions with skepticism. There is nothing preventing Iran from redirecting the equivalent of $6 billion from school and hospital funding to the military or the IRGC and replacing it with the South Korean money. While our community of former Iran hostages is thrilled that five innocent Americans are soon to be released, many of us feel compelled to speak out against any deal that might incentivize Iran to engage in further hostage-taking.
The moment of my release from Evin remains etched in my memory: the flurry of bureaucracy, the final taunts from my IRGC captors, a last glance at the bleak and lifeless courtyard outside the interrogation unit, being forced to stand in front of the gates of Evin for a surreal interview that would later be used in a 15-minute propaganda clip on the evening news, the opulent private hangar of the IRGC at Mehrabad airport, squeezing the hand of the Australian ambassador as she led me up the stairs onto the plane that would carry me out of Iranian airspace, and finally, the overwhelming sensation of being able to breathe deeply for the first time in nearly two and a half years.
I am elated for Namazi, Tahbaz, Shargi, and the others. I know that they must be tempering their joy with a healthy dose of pragmatism, cautioning themselves not to succumb to false hope. I, too, was left behind in a prisoner-swap agreement one year into my incarceration, when two Australian backpackers were released from Evin. The American hostages understand that nothing is truly over until it reaches its conclusion. Namazi and Tahbaz have also experienced the pain of being left behind: $1.7 billion was not enough to secure Namazi’s freedom in 2016, and Tahbaz, a British citizen, was excluded from last year’s £400 million deal with the U.K. While I cannot speak for their emotions, I imagine they would be appalled to learn that despite the staggering amount of money involved, the current deal will once again leave behind U.S. nationals.
Recent reports indicated that U.S. negotiators had irked their Iranian counterparts by attempting to add another American to the deal at the last minute. The families of two U.S. permanent residents, who are considered U.S. nationals under the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act of 2020…
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