STOCKHOLM: Iranian-Swedish Ahmadreza Djalali, an academic who has been on death row in Iran for eight years, attacked Sweden’s prime minister after being excluded from a prisoner swap, in an audio recording obtained by AFP Wednesday.
Two Swedes were released on Saturday in exchange for Hamid Noury, a 63-year-old Iranian former prisons official handed a life sentence in Sweden in 2022 for his role in mass killings in Iranian jails in 1988.
The two Swedes were EU diplomat Johan Floderus, held in Iran since April 2022 accused of espionage, and Iranian-Swede Saeed Azizi, arrested in November.
But Djalali, on death row in Iran since 2017 after having been convicted of espionage, missed out on the swap.
“Mr. Prime Minister, you decided to leave me behind under huge risk of being executed” Jalali said in an audio recording shared with AFP by his wife Vida Mehrannia.
“I talk to you from Evin prison, inside a horrible cave where I have spent eight years, two months, almost 3,000 days of my life,” Djalali said.
Directing his message to Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, Djalali asked: “Why not me?“
Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom has stressed that Stockholm tried to secure his release, but Tehran refused to discuss his case as it does not recognize dual nationality.
He was granted Swedish citizenship while in jail in Iran.
“It’s just excuses,” Mehrannia told AFP. Her husband’s release “wasn’t important to them, they didn’t want to challenge Iran,” she added.
“I’m so angry, I’m at a loss for words.”
In his message, Djalali dared Kristersson to meet his son and family in front of tv cameras and tell him “why you left his father behind.
“My son was four when I was detained and he is now 12 and a half years old. He spent two thirds of his life without a father,” Djalali said, noting his son had been born in Sweden and grown up among Swedish children.
As a result of the publishing of the recording, Djalali had been denied making calls to Sweden, Mehrannia told AFP.
“But I think it was worth it,” she said. “It was important.”
Amnesty International has called on Sweden’s government to “do everything” to ensure Djalali can return.
Academic blasts Swedish PM after missing out on prisoner swap
https://arab.news/4k42j
Academic blasts Swedish PM after missing out on prisoner swap
- “Mr. Prime Minister, you decided to leave me behind under huge risk of being executed” Djalali said in an audio recording
- “I talk to you from Evin prison, inside a horrible cave where I have spent eight years, two months, almost 3,000 days of my life“
Lawsuit challenges Trump administration’s ending of protections for Somalis
- The lawsuit cites a series of statements Trump has made describing Somalis as “garbage” and “low IQ people” who “contribute nothing.”
BOSTON: Immigrant rights advocates filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking to stop US President Donald Trump’s administration from next week ending legal protections that allow nearly 1,100 Somalis to live and work in the United States. The lawsuit, brought by four Somalis and two advocacy groups, challenges the US Department of Homeland Security’s decision to end Temporary Protected Status for Somali immigrants, whom Trump has derided in public remarks. Outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in January announced that TPS for Somalis would end on March 17, arguing that Somalia’s conditions had improved, despite fighting continuing between Somali forces and Al-Shabab militants. The plaintiffs, who include the groups African Communities Together and Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, in the lawsuit filed in Boston federal court argue the move was procedurally flawed and driven by a discriminatory, predetermined agenda.
The lawsuit cites a series of statements Trump has made describing Somalis as “garbage” and “low IQ people” who “contribute nothing.”
The plaintiffs said the administration is ending TPS for Somalia and other countries due to unconstitutional bias against non-white immigrants, not based on objective assessments of country conditions.
“The termination of TPS for Somalia is racism masking as immigration policy,” Omar Farah, executive director at the legal group Muslim Advocates, said in a statement.
DHS did not respond to a request for comment. It has previously said TPS was “never intended to be a de facto amnesty program.”
TPS is a form of humanitarian immigration protection that shields eligible migrants from deportation and allows them to work. Under Noem, DHS has moved to end TPS for a dozen countries, sparking legal challenges. The administration on Saturday announced plans to pursue an appeal at the US Supreme Court in order to end TPS for over 350,000 Haitians. It also wants the high court to allow it to end TPS for about 6,000 Syrians.
SOMALI COMMUNITY TARGETED
Somalia was first designated for TPS in 1991, with its latest extension in 2024. About 1,082 Somalis currently hold TPS, and 1,383 more have pending applications, according to DHS. Somalis in Minnesota in recent months had become a target of Trump’s immigration crackdown, with officials pointing to a fraud scandal in which many people charged come from the state’s large Somali community. The Trump administration cited those fraud allegations as a basis for a months-long immigration enforcement surge in Democratic-led Minnesota, during which about 3,000 immigration agents were deployed, spurring protests and leading to the killing of two US citizens by federal agents.
In November, Trump announced he would end TPS for Somalis in Minnesota, and a month later said he wanted them sent “back to where they came from.”
The US Department of State advises against traveling to Somalia, citing crime and civil unrest among numerous factors.
