BRUSSELS: Belgium on Tuesday said it had formally asked Iran to repatriate jailed aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele from Tehran, after a disputed prisoner exchange treaty entered into force.
Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib said she had informed her Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian of the “transfer request for our compatriot Olivier Vandecasteele.”
“I denounced his conditions of detention and requested a visit by our ambassador in Iran,” she wrote in a social media post.
Iran arrested Vandecasteele, 42, in February 2022 and sentenced him to 40 years for spying, in a move condemned as “hostage diplomacy” by his backers.
Brussels is eyeing a swap for Iranian official Assadollah Assadi, jailed in Belgium after he was convicted of masterminding a plot to blow up a 2018 Iranian opposition event outside Paris.
But a potential exchange was held up for months after a legal challenge by an Iranian opposition group to a prisoner exchange treaty with Tehran.
The complaint was dismissed by Belgium’s Constitutional Court last month, fueling hopes that Vandecasteele could be returned home.
The treaty formally entered into force on Tuesday.
The family of Vandecasteele, who worked for aid organizations in Iran for six years, said he was transferred to Tehran’s Evin prison 10 days ago and was being held in solitary confinement.
They said he complained in a brief phone call that “he could no longer sleep and could barely stand up straight because of excruciating muscle and nerve pain.”
“He is not being treated for this. His detention conditions have not changed and he is not given enough food to preserve his health,” the family said.
“Olivier is totally worn out. He cannot remain the pawn of talks between two countries. His life is at stake,” they said.
Belgium requests Iran return jailed aid worker
https://arab.news/mnuhu
Belgium requests Iran return jailed aid worker
- Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib wrote on social media “I denounced his conditions of detention and requested a visit by our ambassador in Iran”
- Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib wrote on social media “I denounced his conditions of detention and requested a visit by our ambassador in Iran”
Fledgling radio station aims to be ‘voice of the people’ in Gaza
- The electricity crisis is one of the most serious and difficult problems in the Gaza Strip, says Shereen Khalifa Broadcaster
DEIR EL-BALAH: From a small studio in the central city of Deir El-Balah, Sylvia Hassan’s voice echoes across the Gaza Strip, broadcast on one of the Palestinian territory’s first radio stations to hit the airwaves after two years of war.
Hassan, a radio host on fledgling station “Here Gaza,” delivers her broadcast from a well-lit room, as members of the technical team check levels and mix backing tracks on a sound deck. “This radio station was a dream we worked to achieve for many long months and sometimes without sleep,” Hassan said.
“It was a challenge for us, and a story of resilience.”
Hassan said the station would focus on social issues and the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which remains grave in the territory despite a US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas since October.
“The radio station’s goal is to be the voice of the people in the Gaza Strip and to express their problems and suffering, especially after the war,” said Shereen Khalifa, part of the broadcasting team.
“There are many issues that people need to voice.” Most of Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people were displaced at least once during the gruelling war.
Many still live in tents with little or no sanitation.
The war also decimated Gaza’s telecommunications and electricity infrastructure, compounding the challenges in reviving the territory’s local media landscape. “The electricity problem is one of the most serious and difficult problems in the Gaza Strip,” said Khalifa.
“We have solar power, but sometimes it doesn’t work well, so we have to rely on an external generator,” she added.
The station’s launch is funded by the EU and overseen by Filastiniyat, an organization that supports Palestinian women journalists, and the media center at the An-Najah National University in Nablus, in the occupied West Bank.
The station plans to broadcast for two hours per day from Gaza and for longer from Nablus. It is available on FM and online.
Khalifa said that stable internet access had been one of the biggest obstacles in setting up the station, but that it was now broadcasting uninterrupted audio.
The Gaza Strip, a tiny territory surrounded by Israel, Egypt, and the Mediterranean Sea, has been under Israeli blockade even before the attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which sparked the war. Despite the ceasefire, Israel continues to strictly control the entry of all goods and people to the territory.
“Under the siege, it is natural that modern equipment necessary for radio broadcasting cannot enter, so we have made the most of what is available,” she said.
