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- Kawoon khamoosh
- BBC World Service
Credit, Center for Human Rights in Iran
Ahmadreza Djalali belongs to a long list of foreigners detained in Iran and accused of espionage.
It looked like it was going to be another business trip: spend two weeks in Tehran and return to Stockholm. Four years later, Vida Mehran-nia still regrets not having “properly fired” her husband.
Ahmadreza Djalali was summoned by the Iranian authorities in 2016. There he would give seminars and teach as a specialist in emergency medicine.
On the day of his departure, his wife called him to wish him well.
“Even two weeks apart was too much to bear,” Vida told me over a sip of coffee in central Stockholm. in Sweden.
You cannot receive me at your home. The young son of the couple does not know that the father is in prison in Iran and continues to think that the father is away on business.
Credit, Mehran-nea life
Ahmadreza Djalali, his wife Vida Mehran-nia and their son, who is now eight years old and does not know that his father has been imprisoned in Iran for years.
Four years have passed since the doctor, who has both Iranian and Swedish citizenship, was arrested by the Iranian intelligence service.
They accused him of relaying secret information to Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, to help them assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists.
He was sentenced to death. His lawyer says he confessed to the crime under torture.
Solitary confinement
On October 24, Djalali was placed in solitary confinement in Evin prison, one of the largest in Iran, where political prisoners are the majority.
In December, the doctor called his family. I was on death row.
Credit, Mehran-nea life
Vida Mehran-nia says that every minute since her husband’s arrest is torture.
Vida took it as a warning that Iranian authorities were preparing to execute her husband of 45 years.
“He was extremely desperate and asked me to help him prevent his execution and save his life,” Vida told the BBC.
“He is weak. He believes that he cannot do anything to save his life and that he has no power just in a cell.”
Later, Djalali spoke with her 18-year-old daughter.
Ahmadreza Djalali before his trip to Iran (left) and in 2017, when he went on a hunger strike in prison.
“He has been crying and asking politicians and human rights activists to save his father’s life,” Vida said.
“It is very difficult. We are all suffering a lot. No one can imagine what we are going through. It is torture.”
The blow to the family is immense.
Family life
Credit, Mehran-nea life
Vida says the youngest son, now eight, thinks his father is on a business trip.
“My youngest son was only four years old when Ahmadreza left for Iran. Now he is eight,” says Vida.
“Always ask about your father and remember when you would sit on your shoulders and have fun.”
Ahmadreza suggested that if he is executed, his son should not know how he died.
More education
Ahmadreza Djalali moved to Sweden in 2009 to further his academic training.
His family traveled a year later, after he was approved for a doctorate at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
Credit, Mehran-nea life
Djalali and his family lived in Sweden and Italy, where he graduated academically.
They soon moved to Italy, where he did a postdoc, and then returned to Sweden in 2015.
The family had a simple life until the fateful trip to Iran.
Sweden granted him citizenship in 2018 while he was in prison. For some in Iran, the act was proof that Ahmadreza was “an asset of the West.”
His wife rejects the interpretation, saying the couple has had a permanent residence permit since Ahmadreza completed his doctorate.
Respected scientist
Credit, Courtesy
Djalali specializes in preparing hospitals for disasters.
Ahmadreza is a respected scientist in Sweden. He was researching how to make hospitals and regions more disaster prepared.
His photo still bears a sign in the Södersjukhuset hospital, a branch of the Karolinska Institute, along with the title of his doctoral thesis: “Preparedness and Safe Hospitals: Medical Disaster Response.”
He was in contact with his PhD advisor at the Karolinska Institute, Professor Lisa Kurland.
They planned to meet in April 2017 to discuss the investigation, but Ahmadreza never came.
Professor Kurland says Ahmadreza believed his visits to Iran were safe.
“His non-appearance did not match his character and I was wondering if something had happened,” said the professor of emergency medicine.
“Several times I asked him before and after each visit (to Iran) if it was safe and he said yes.”
When Ahmadreza was arrested in Iran, his family told friends and colleagues that he had been involved in a traffic accident and was in a hospital.
They thought it would help free him, but to no avail. So they decided to make the case public.
Death penalty
Credit, Courtesy
Djalali’s friends and colleagues describe him as “courteous, humble and decent.”
Professor Kurland says she felt an “unthinkable shock” upon learning that he had been sentenced to death.
“I remember your passion for wanting to make a difference,” he says.
“I wanted to use scientific tools and methodologies to get a doctorate, but also to help people in Iran.”
Kataria Bohm and Veronica Lindström, associate professors at the Karolinksa Institute, shared offices with Ahmadreza.
They describe him as “courteous, humble and sweet”, who always talked about Iran and how he wanted to visit the country’s universities to “share his knowledge and help people”, despite the political situation.
Liberation campaign
Credit, fake images
Amnesty International has called on Iran to suspend the execution of Ahmedraza.
In 2017, 75 Nobel Prize winners wrote an open letter to Iranian officials calling for the immediate release of Ahmadreza Djalali.
Two weeks ago, 150 other Nobel laureates wrote another letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, asking for his intervention to free Djalali.
Last month Amnesty International called on Iran to stay his execution.
The Swedish foreign minister also spoke with her Iranian counterpart to the same end.
But Iran rejected Sweden’s request and warned against “any interference.”
Credit, fake images
“Teachers are not criminals,” reads a poster by a protester in front of the Iranian embassy in Brussels in December 2017.
The list of foreigners and dual citizenship held by Iran is long.
Human rights groups accuse Terran of using them as pawns and of winning concessions from other governments.
Last month, Iran released a British-Australian professor who was serving a 10-year sentence for spying. The teacher was replaced by three Iranian prisoners.
British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a social worker, remains in detention.
Dedication
Credit, fake images
Djalali wanted to save lives, especially disaster victims.
Ahmadreza dedicated his doctoral thesis to the people of Iran: “For the people killed or affected by the disasters of the world, especially the people of the city of Bam in Iran”, reads the first page.
In 2003, an earthquake killed more than 26,000 people in Bam.
The doctor never thought that his doctorate in emergency medicine would land him on death row.
His wife says Ahmadreza just wanted to save lives and prevent these disasters from happening again.
The daughter follows in the father’s footsteps. She is enrolled at the same university where she did her PhD.
This series of events has a bittersweet flavor for Life, who supported her daughter despite the great absence in their lives.
“When he finished high school with high marks, his father wasn’t about to celebrate,” Vida says through tears.
“When she was approved by the Karolinska Institute and she chose medicine, like her father, he was not there either.”
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