The moment I laid eyes on Siamak Namazi was while I was confined in my cell at Evin Prison in Tehran. Little did I know that the longest-held American hostage in Iran was being kept just a few hundred meters away from me. As I sat on the stained and worn-out carpet, my gaze fixed on the dusty wall-mounted television, I couldn’t understand Farsi at the time. However, the word “Amrika” and the term “jasoos” (spy) were thrown around the interrogation room with such abandon that I began to recognize them.
The man I saw on the screen was Siamak Namazi – a gaunt, bookish-looking individual with hollow eyes that constantly glanced at the camera. He was supposedly “America’s top spy,” but I couldn’t help but feel incredulous. The narrator then showed footage of an elderly man with wispy white hair and a kind face – Baquer Namazi. Suspenseful music played as images of father and son posing with flags and symbols of the Great Satan were displayed. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) portrayed them as dangerous American infiltrators, and themselves as the bold and noble rescuers of Iran.
Part of me wanted to groan, roll my eyes, or even laugh at the absurdity of it all. However, I had learned to be cautious. A deep disquiet filled my gut. The charges against the Namazis were ludicrous, but they held deadly consequences. In a place like Iran, people are routinely executed for even less serious offenses.
Morad Tahbaz came into my view for the first time through the back window of a meeting room connected to the prison duty officer’s station. Tahbaz was the first defendant in a group case involving Iran’s premier environmental conservation NGO. Two of my cellmates were also co-defendants in the case. They told me that Tahbaz had been moved to “the villa” – a self-contained room with a small garden annex where the IRGC prefers to keep long-term prisoners. It was said to have better conditions, and as a British American, Tahbaz was one of the IRGC’s most valuable captives. I observed Tahbaz wandering aimlessly around a narrow courtyard, occasionally stopping to inspect a potted plant. It was rumored that he had survived cancer while in custody. There were murmurs of a potential deal to secure his release, but it never materialized until now.
From my conversations with low-level IRGC personnel, I discovered that there was a hierarchy among foreign prisoners based on their value. Complete foreigners were more valuable than dual-nationals, and Western Europeans were more valuable than Eastern Europeans or Japanese citizens. The Chinese swiftly dealt with their citizens in a matter of months, while detainees from the developing world had to serve their entire sentences. Americans and Israelis were the most expensive hostages to extract and therefore the most coveted.
I often heard Iranian political prisoners say to me, “At least you’re not an American.” They were trying to encourage me not to lose hope. As an Australian researcher arrested after being invited to an academic conference, I was lower on the value chain than Siamak Namazi or Morad Tahbaz. However, my freedom still held enough significance for Iran to make 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 Emad Shargi, another American hostage who is reportedly on the verge of being freed, I received a 10-year sentence for the fabricated charge of espionage.
Engaging in deals with the Islamic Republic is a dirty business, but one that has become normalized due to Iran’s increasing reliance on hostage-taking to achieve its foreign policy objectives or even to address budgetary concerns. Hostage diplomacy is on the rise globally as authoritarian regimes gain power and the perception of a declining United States grows. Iran is one of the most egregious perpetrators, consistently defying international human rights principles and economic laws by demanding higher and higher ransoms for their foreign hostages.
Namazi, Tahbaz, and Shargi are the public faces of Iran’s latest hostage-taking enterprise. This endeavor has reportedly secured a prisoner exchange between Iran and the United States, involving Iranian nationals held in American prisons, as well as the transfer of $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds from South Korean banks due to sanctions. This is the second cash-for-hostages deal between Iran and the United States this century. The first deal involved $1.7 billion in frozen assets from a past arms purchase, which the Obama administration transferred in 2016 in conjunction with the JCPOA nuclear deal, in exchange for the release of four American citizens, including Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post reporter. A similar deal was struck between Iran and the UK in 2022, resulting in the transfer of a historical military debt of £400 million to Tehran in exchange for two British Iranian hostages.
Each time a hostage is freed, those of us who have survived Iran’s prison system celebrate together. Our community of former hostages is surprisingly large, and it continues to grow as Iran becomes increasingly bold and shameless in its hostage-taking tactics. Namazi, Tahbaz, Shargi, and two other unnamed American hostages have been released from prison and placed under house arrest in anticipation of 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 Iran uses the 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 or hospital funding to the military or the IRGC, and then using the South Korean money to fill the gap. While our community is thrilled that five innocent Americans will soon be freed, many of us feel compelled to speak out against any deal that may further incentivize Iran’s hostage-taking.
I vividly remember the moment of my release from Evin Prison. Bureaucracy, parting taunts from my IRGC captors, one last glimpse at the gray and soulless courtyard, and a bizarre interview filmed in front of the prison gates, which later appeared in a 15-minute propaganda clip on the evening news. I recall the lavish private hangar of the IRGC at Mehrabad airport and squeezing the hand of the Australian ambassador as she led me up the stairs onto the plane that would take me out of Iranian airspace. Finally, the overwhelming sensation of being able to breathe deeply again after nearly two and a half years.
I am overjoyed for Namazi, Tahbaz, Shargi, and the others. However, I know that right now, they are probably tempering their elation with pragmatism, warning themselves not to be lured by false hope. I experienced being left behind in a prisoner swap deal that saw two Australian backpackers released from Evin after one year of my incarceration. The American hostages are well aware that nothing is truly over until it is over. Namazi and Tahbaz have also felt the pain of being left behind – $1.7 billion was not enough to secure Namazi’s freedom in 2016, and Tahbaz, a British national as well, was not included in the £400 million deal with the UK last year. While I cannot speak for them, I imagine they would be appalled to learn that, despite the staggering sum of money involved, the current deal will once again leave behind US nationals.
Recent reports suggested that US negotiators had upset their Iranian counterparts by attempting to add one more American to the deal at the last minute. The families of two US permanent residents, who are considered US nationals under the 2020 Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act, have advocated for their inclusion in the agreement. The negotiations continue, and it remains to be seen if their pleas will be heard. In the meantime, those of us who have experienced the horrors of Iranian prisons eagerly await the release of our fellow survivors, hoping that this deal brings them the freedom they so desperately deserve.
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