Another Iranian American Arrested and Imprisoned in Tehran; Pastor Saeed’s Wife Speaks Out
Iran has arrested another American holding dual citizenship, bringing to four the number of Iranian Americans imprisoned in Tehran after they came under suspicion by hard-line security forces.
Siamak Namazi, a businessman based in Dubai who is in his early 40s, was arrested earlier this month when he was visiting a friend in Tehran, according to a family friend who did not want to be identified. It was not clear whether any charges have been brought against him or what authorities might allege he did.
Namazi, the son of a former governor in the oil-rich Iranian province of Khuzestan, comes from a prominent Iranian family. Namazi’s family came to the United States in 1983 when he was a boy, and he later returned to Iran after graduating from college to serve in the Iranian military. He has consulted on business opportunities in Iran for more than a decade.
A relative of Namazi’s said the family had tried to keep the arrest private, and the relative declined to comment. Word of the arrest of an unnamed Iranian American businessman was first reported by Iran Wire on Oct. 15. Namazi was named as the one who was arrested in several tweets by Iranian Americans earlier this month.
The State Department has repeatedly pressed Iran to release three other imprisoned Americans: Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian, who has been held for more than a year, was recently convicted after an espionage trial; former Marine Amir Hekmati of Flint, Mich., who was accused of being a spy when he went to Iran to visit his grandmother, has been held since 2011; and Saeed Abedini, a pastor from Boise, Idaho, was convicted in 2013 of threatening Iran’s national security by participating in home churches. Rezaian, Hekmati and Abedini have all strongly denied the allegations against them. (Read more from “Another Iranian American Arrested and Imprisoned in Tehran” HERE)
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