I Get Detained in Evin Prison Iran (Too), Already Freed, but Ransom Strategy is Too Expensive Price Tag
Last time was worth US$507 million. This note for the late my beloved lecturer Dr. Samsu Rizal Panggabean (May 31, 1961-Sept 7, 2017), freeing of Indonesian hostages held in the Philippines in 2016.
Beirut 11.11am / Tehran 11.41am / DC 4.11am
US President Joe Biden’s US$6 billion prisoner swap deal with Iran risks complicating future hostage negotiations with Tehran and raising the regime's expected price for detainees, a former prisoner has warned.
Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese-American businessman with permanent US residency, spent four years in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison on espionage charges until his release in 2019.
The 56 year old said there would inevitably be a drawback to the Qatar and Oman -mediated agreement struck by Washington and Tehran.
Zakka, who is in his 50s, is an advocate for internet freedom and is secretary-general of the Beirut-based Arab ICT Organisation (IJMA3), an alliance of information communications technology associations from 13 countries across the Arab world that has worked for the US government.
In September 2015, he travelled from his home in Washington DC to Tehran to attend the International Conference and Exhibition on Women in Sustainable Development.
He had been invited to speak by Iran's then Vice-President for Women and Family Affairs, Shahindokht Molaverdi.
Zakka was arrested while on his way to the airport to leave the country by men believed to belong to the Revolutionary Guards and was transferred to Tehran's Evin prison, where he was kept in solitary confinement for almost a year.
In October 2016, the judiciary said Tehran's Revolutionary Court had sentenced Zakka to 10 years in prison for co-operating with a foreign enemy state - an allegation rejected by his family. An appeals court upheld the sentence at the end of 2017.
The pact, which secured the release of five Americans detained by Iran, included a waiver to allow the transfer of billions of dollars of frozen Iranian oil revenue held in South Korea.
The value of cash which has been moved to accounts in Doha could be anywhere between $6 billion and $7 billion (£4.8 billion-£5.6 billion), depending on exchange rates.
The sheer sum of money involved could have a detrimental effect on any future hostage discussions between western governments and Iran, Mr Zakka said.
He predicted US$1.2 billion could become the “going rate” for Iran’s foreign hostages.
“It’s going to damage future releases,” he said.
“The unfrozen assets are such a big amount it will be hard to influence any future negotiations that hostages will be released for anything less than $1.2 billion.
“This is something of concern.”
He also dismissed US assurances that the released assets would be used by Iran solely for humanitarian purposes. It would be relatively easy for the government to use the funds to purchase medicine only to sell it on the black market and use the cash for illicit purposes, he said.
“They can get the cash for the goods and give it to Hezbollah,” he warned.
However, the father of three was keen to stress he supported the US deal in principle because it guaranteed the freedom of people who were in a situation he knows all too well.
“For me I believe the hostages spent a long time in prison and they needed to get back home,” he said.
“The government had a long time to find a way to release them. In the end they found a way to bring them back. That’s my opinion.
“We are always happy to see hostages released but when the deal is over we have some questions if we feel the process has not been transparent. We saw that some people were released and some were left behind.”
The group which landed in the US this week included businessman Siamak Namazi, wildlife conservationist Morad Tahbaz and venture capitalist Emad Sharqi.
The two other US prisoners involved in the swap have not been publicly identified. All are Iranian-Americans.
Jamshid Sharmahd, a US resident who is on death row in Iran, was not included in the deal. His daughter Gazelle Sharmahd told her father had been “left behind to die”.
Shahab Dalili, another US resident imprisoned in Iran, was also side-lined in negotiations. Anoosheh Ashoori, a former British hostage in Iran who shared a cell with Mr Dalili, explained there was “great disappointment” when he found out his friend had been ignored.
Born and raised in Beirut, Mr Zakka moved with his family to the US as a teenager and settled in Washington DC.
He lives in the city with his wife and three sons and serves as president of Hostage Aid Worldwide, a non-profit group that lobbies for the released of hostages around the globe.
In September 2015, he was invited by the Iranian regime to speak at a tech conference in Tehran in his role as vice chairman of the World Innovation Technology and Services Alliance and head of its global public policy.
His invitation did not seem out of the ordinary – he was well-placed in the industry and was involved in organisations that helped forward tech industries in Arab nations.
But on the last day of his trip he was abducted by the intelligence wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and taken to Evin prison, shortly after the 2015 nuclear deal – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – had been struck with Iran.
“The JCPOA had been signed and it was a time of openness,” he remembered. “Businesses were excited about [potentially] going to Iran. Microsoft, Intel, everybody was planning to go. I think my arrest was a message by the IRGC to the world that ‘we are not open’.
“They were saying very clearly that they wanted to do a nuclear deal but they didn’t want openness and tech freedom. They knew that this would bring about the end of the regime.”
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-prada- Adi Mulia Pradana is a Helper. Former adviser (President Indonesia) Jokowi for mapping 2-times election. I used to get paid to catch all these blunders—now I do it for free. Trying to work out what's going on, what happens next. Arch enemies of the tobacco industry, (still) survive after getting doxed. Now figure out, or, prevent catastrophic situations in the Indonesian administration from outside the government. After his mom was nearly killed by a syndicate, now I do it (catch all these blunders, especially blunders by an asshole syndicates) for free. Writer actually facing 12 years attack-simultaneously (physically terror, cyberattack terror) by his (ex) friend in IR UGM / HI UGM (all of them actually indebted to me, at least get a very cheap book). 2 times, my mom nearly got assassinated by my friend with “komplotan” / weird syndicate. Once assassin, forever is assassin, that I was facing in years. I push myself to be (keep) dovish, pacifist, and you can read my pacifist tone in every note I write. A framing that myself propagated for years.
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