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Politics

Shahram Amiri’s Mother Appeals to Human Rights Organizations

October 17, 2016
Shima Shahrabi
6 min read
Shahram Amiri on his return to Imam Khomeini Airport in 2010
Shahram Amiri on his return to Imam Khomeini Airport in 2010

“We have nowhere to turn to,” says Marzieh Amiri, whose son Shahram Amiri was executed as a spy more than two months ago. “But we implore you to ask human rights organizations to follow up on his fate and ask why this happened to us, why they brought this tragedy on us.”

Iranian media identified Shahram Amiri as a nuclear scientist and university researcher but his family said that he was an environmental expert working for the Iranian defense ministry.

When Amiri returned to Iran on July 15, 2010, following a mysterious absence of more than a year, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Hassan Qashqavi, welcomed him with flowers at Imam Khomeini International Airport. But on August 3, 2016, he was executed as a spy in an unknown location.

The saga of Shahram Amiri is full of perplexing and unanswered questions. Were there two Shahram Amiris? Was he double agent? Did the American CIA abduct him and cause him to divulge nuclear secrets? Did an Iranian intelligence agency send him to provide the Americans with false information?

The story began on May 31,2009 when Amiri left Iran for a religious pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. He was staying at a hotel in Medina when he disappeared on June 3. His family could not trace him. He later claimed that he had been abducted by an American spy agency and had been offered $50 million dollars to spill Iranian nuclear secrets.

Then on June 7, 2010, Iranian state-run TV broadcast a video in which Amiri said that the CIA had abducted him from Saudi Arabia. He said that he had been tortured “physically and mentally” to force him to agree to an interview with an American news organization, to claim that he had voluntarily defected to the US, and to say that he had given the Americans a laptop containing secret documents about Iran’s military nuclear program.

But that same night, another video was posted on YouTube that completely contradicted the first video’s account. In this video, Amiri appeared calm and said he was free but that he missed Iran. He said that he had gone to the US to study but that he wanted to go back to Iran.

Then there were more twists ad turns. On July 13, 2010, it was reported that Amiri had taken refuge at the Pakistani embassy in Washington DC, which functions as Iran’s Interests Section in the absence of an Iranian embassy. According to the Guardian, Amiri asked to return to Iran. “Following the release of my interview on the Internet, which brought disgrace to the US government for this abduction, they wanted to send me back quietly to Iran by another country's airline,” he told Iranian TV from inside the embassy. “They wanted to deny the main story and cover up this abduction. However, they finally failed... After my comments were released on the Internet, the Americans realized that they were the losers of this game.”

A number of Iranian officials and media pounced on the story, portraying Amiri as a hero who got one over on the US. But new twists kept coming. A short while after Amiri’s return to Iran in July 2010, an unnamed American official told the BBC that Amiri had “provided useful information to the United States. The Iranians now have him. In terms of win-loss, it's not even a close call.” The BBC also quoted American officials saying that “he apparently became concerned for family members he had left behind, had a breakdown and decided to return to Iran.”

 

From Hero To Less Than Zero

Within a few months, Iranian authorities arrested Amiri. According to his family, a military court sentenced him on July 13, 2012, to ten years in prison and five years' exile for “activities against national security,” “secret cooperation with a hostile government,” and “providing the enemy with classified information.” Then there was a news blackout until the night before his execution. His parents were allowed to visit him one last time.

Amiri was buried in Kermanshah, but his wife and his son -- who is now 13 -- were not present for the funeral. “Shahram’s wife has had no contact with us,” says Marzieh Amiri. “First of all, they are in Tehran and we live in Kermanshah. Second, they don’t talk to us. After my son left and came back our relationship went bad and they are no longer in touch with us. They did not come for the ceremonies and said that they would have their own mourning ceremony in Tehran.”

There have since been reports that Amiri returned to Iran because authorities pressured or threatened his family. “We have no idea what they did to his wife and son,” says Marzieh Amiri. “They did not tell us anything but whatever it was they themselves surely knew about it. They stayed away from us.”

 

A Family Under Political Pressure

“The wife of Shahram Amiri is still under pressure,” an informed source tells IranWire. “She is not allowed to talk or give interviews about what she has gone through. Security officials did not even allow her to go to Kermanshah to attend the funeral.”

According to Marzieh Amiri, Shahram’s father, Asghar Amiri, was arrested after he gave an interview to BBC Persian about his son, and then spent 45 days in detention. Now, Marzieh speaks for the family. “When they killed our son nobody came to us,” she says. “Losing a child is horrible.”

Besides Shahram, she has two sons and one daughter. But she did not allow the other sons to get involved in the affair or ask questions. “The brothers knew nothing about what Shahram was doing so they could not pursue it,” she says. “They both have families of their own, but we are his parents and it is different. His father and I...”

She leaves her sentence unfinished and talks about the seven years that she has spent pursuing Shahram’s case. “There is no pursuing anymore. I did it for seven years and this is where I ended up. For seven long years, I only went here and there and this is my sorry ending. Now it is all over and we are miserable. I leave it to the human rights organizations to pursue it and ask why they did what they did, why overnight my son became a spy, why they executed him all of a sudden and in secret. Why has nobody asked any questions?”

After her son’s execution, she began talking to websites based outside the country. I ask her if she has been warned about them. “No, I have not said anything bad,” she replies. “In all the interviews, I said that I am happy with the regime, that I am happy with my leader, only that the hardliners got my son killed.”

The family still wears black. “We are still in mourning,” she says. “I have no idea where to go to get justice for our son.”

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