Europeans Protest at Iran’s Human Rights Violations and Jailing of Dual Nationals

Ambassadors of the Islamic Republic of Iran in France, Germany and the United Kingdom have been summoned to each country's foreign ministry after they had sent formal protests over the Iranian government’s treatment of political prisoners, detaining of dual nationals, and other repressive measures. What prompted this protest now? And will it help dual nationals of Iran and each of these states currently languishing in Iranian prisons?

Summoning ambassadors (and submitting written letters of protest) is one of the most serious forms of diplomatic action available in international relations. Iranians have endured human rights violations at the hands of their governments for decades – including those Iranians who also hold British or French citizenship. France, the United Kingdom and other countries have tried to intervene in these cases behind closed doors and through appeasement and other similar measures. But these have proven fruitless.

New actions taken by France, Germany and the UK, to summon Iranian ambassadors and to submit formal written protests which include threats to reduce trade relations, are a fresh attempt to pressure the Iranian government even as it has intensified its human rights abuses in recent months.

Iran’s ambassadors must now delivery the letters of protest to the Iranian government and to communicate the reply. Indifference on Iran’s part to these protests and ongoing pressure from the European states could lead to a request, to the Iranian government, that it withdraw its ambassadors and even downgrade diplomatic relations.

A number of European states have a history of downgrading diplomatic and trade relations with Iran over the country’s human rights record. But after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement, over Iran’s nuclear program, fear of retaliation from the Islamic Republic has meant that several European states chose to ignore human rights violations in their attempt to build new trading connections with the country.

Three letters of protest from three governments, received at the same time, is a clear signal to the government in Tehran that its international credibility and constructive relations with Europe have been undermined and may get still worse.

The Guardian newspaper obtained a copy of the UK's protest to Hamid Ba'idinejad, the ambassador of the Islamic Republic to the UK, in which it says "arbitrary detentions" in Iran have seriously damaged Iran's international standing. The UK also protested against the harassment and jailing of dual national Iranians.

On the morning of September 12, 2020, Iranian authorities executed Navid Afkari, a champion of the national youth wrestling team, who in 2018 had joined national protests against economic and living conditions in the country. He was 27 years old. Afkari was executed as part of a “retribution” sentence, handed down by a court, after he was accused of being responsible for the death of a security guard. Observers said that the evidence offered for his role in the murder was flawed.

Nasrin Sotoudeh, a human rights lawyer who has represented a number of activists, and who herself is imprisoned and is on hunger strike, has recently been denied access to proper medical care. Fariba Adelkhah, an Iranian-French anthropologist and academic at Sciences Po, has been detained on trumped-up charges and sentenced to six years in prison. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an Iranian-British citizen who has been detained since 2016, and is currently under house arrest and obliged to wear electronic tags, has been sentenced to five years in prison by the Revolutionary Guards after visiting her family in Iran and working at the British Council. Iranian law says that she can be released after serving half her sentence – but the authorities have deprived her of this reprieve. A revolutionary court recently informed her of fresh charges and possibly additional prison terms.

Hours before summoning Hamid Ba'idinejad, Iran’s ambassador in London, the UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Rabb had said that any return of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to prison was unacceptable to the UK government.

Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, has previously said that it would argue before a court that Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release should be linked to payment of a 1978 debt of $573 million over a cancelled arms deal, owned by the UK to Iran. The UK government has insisted that the two situations are not related. European countries and the United States have condemned the detention of dual nationals and the Islamic Republic's practice of pursuing its foreign policy agenda through this method.

The UK also disputes the amount owed to Iran. A tribunal to resolve the dispute will soon convene in London. Before it does the Iranian authorities are using the detention of Zaghari-Ratcliffe and the threat of her charges to exert leverage of the UK government.

The deferral of Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s next trial until after the tribunal sits makes Iran’s tactic all the more apparent. And whatever verdict the court issues may be seen as a response to whatever the tribunal determines.

Increased arrests of dual nationals and the general heightened risk of being a dual national in Iran, corresponding with using these cases in bilateral relations, makes it clear that this practice has almost turned into a foreign policy doctrine for the Islamic Republic. Officials in the UK and US have accused Iran of taking hostages to further foreign policy aims.

Iran has never arrested any Iranian-Chinese or Iranian-Russian dual nationals, for instance, because the policies of these states align with Iranian interests.

One Chinese citizen, Xiyue Wang, is the only individual from China to be arrested in Iran on charges of "espionage." But after Wang's arrest it was revealed that he was actually an American national and lived in the United States. Wang was eventually exchanged in December 2019 for an Iranian prisoner in the US, Massoud Soleimani, a stem cell researcher arrested in the United States for circumventing sanctions.

No citizen of a western state who is not a dual national has been arrested on trumped-up charges so far.

Iran is one of the few states that, to address foreign policy challenges, arrests its own citizens and dual nations by bringing false charges against them and trampling on their human rights. 

Summoning Iran’s ambassadors and writing letters of protests is intended to put Iran on notice. But there is no danger yet of Iran being entirely out in the cold. European states still hope to implement the JCPOA deal, despite the US withdrawing from it and Iran declaring that it would set aside certain of its protocols. European states hope to avoid taking any actions that could give Iran an excuse to abandon entirely the agreement.

Now, as the United States has put unprecedented pressure on the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program and its policies in the Middle East, even as Europe is trying to stand up to the US to maintain the JCPOA, the Islamic Republic is using this opportunity to expand its human rights violations.

European and US relations may be strained during their disagreement over the JCPOA deal but they agree on protesting against human rights violations in Iran. And defending the rights of dual nationals – because there are Iranian-Americans also in prison in Iran – is one area where agreement continues on both sides of the Atlantic. But this agreement has yet to produce more concrete results on behalf of those caught inside Iran’s prisoners. And as long as this is the case then Iran will continue to take dual nationals hostage to advance its goals.