An American citizen of Iranian origin, Siamak Namazi, who has been held in Iran for seven years, on Monday began a seven-day hunger strike in Evin prison and appealed to US President Joe Biden to bring him home.
51-year-old Namazi informed President Biden of his hunger strike in a letter noting that he now holds the “unenviable title of the longest-held Iranian-American hostage in history.”
The announcement of the hunger strike came on the anniversary of the release of five Americans in 2016 after the United States and Iran began implementing the agreement on the Iranian nuclear program that was concluded under President Barack Obama.
“When the Obama Administration unconscionably left me in peril and freed the other American citizens Iran held hostage on January 16, 2016, the US Government promised my family to have me safely home within weeks,” Namazi, said in the letter to Biden released by his lawyer, Jared Genser.
“Yet seven years and two presidents later, I remain caged in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison,” he added.
“My captors enjoy taunting me about that fact by saying things like: ‘How can your beloved America be so heartless? Not one but two US presidents freed others but left you behind!” Namazi said.
“All I ask, sir, is that you devote a minute of your time in the next seven days to the tragedies of the American hostages in Iran,” Siamak Namazi continued.
“Only the President of the United States has the power to bring us all home, if he so resolves,” he added.
Siamak’s lawyer Jared Genser on Monday took to Twitter and wrote, “American hostage in #Iran Siamak Namazi has begun a 7-day hunger strike protesting the US’s continued failure to free him 7yrs after it first left him behind. I’ll be sharing daily updates here & he’ll be posting his own on @sianamazi. Full press release: https://t.co/0dwjNs3Mi1.”
Namazi, an oil executive, was arrested in October 2015 on charges of attempting to overthrow the country’s powerful clerics, an allegation he has denied.
His father, Baquer Namazi was also detained in 2016 when he attempted to help his son, but he was freed on medical grounds in 2022.
