Imprisoned Iranian Americans start hunger strike after appealing to Biden

Iranian-American Siamak Namaj launched a seven-day hunger strike to draw attention to his continued detention in Iran, prompting President Joe Biden to call out all Americans imprisoned in Iran. I asked him to send me home.

Namadji was arrested in 2015 and found guilty of false espionage charges filed by the United States and the United Nations.

His appeal to Biden was released by namadhi attorney Jared Genser on the seventh anniversary of a deal in which Iran freed five Americans in exchange for the United States to offer amnesty to seven Iranians. The exchange was filed Monday in the form of a letter.

“On January 16, 2016, when the Obama administration unwittingly endangered me and released other American citizens held hostage by Iran, the U.S. government sent me to my family within a few weeks. I promised to get you home safely,” Namadji wrote. “Yet seven years and two presidents later, I remain locked up in Tehran’s infamous Evin Prison, holding a long overdue IOU along with the enviable title of the longest-serving Iranian-American hostage in history. I have.”

Namadji cited a “statement of goodwill” by a senior US official who said the release of US hostages from Iran was a top priority, but he has learned not to get his hopes up.

Namadji told Biden he would refuse food for seven days, but urged Biden to spend a minute each day “dedicated to thinking about the suffering of US hostages in Iran.” .

Namadji’s father, Bakel, was arrested after traveling to Iran to visit his son in 2016 and was released in October for health reasons after years in prison on the same charges.

Some information in this article was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, and Reuters.