The Iranian authorities’ arrest of former BBC journalist Bahman Daroshafaei shows the risk dual nationals face if they choose to live in Iran, says Human Rights Watch.

Daroshafaei is of dual Iranian-British nationality and a former employee of the BBC’s Persian service. After living in the United Kingdom for several years, he returned to Iran in September 2014 to be near his family. But when he arrived at the airport, the authorities seized his passport, and since his arrival Intelligence Ministry officials have reportedly interrogated Daroshafaei more than 40 times about his activities as a journalist.

On February 3, 2016, the 34-year-old journalist was arrested, and three days later transferred to Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison.

Daroshafaei’s family has not been able to find out about why he has been arrested, or by whom, or what charges he might be facing. In a letter on February 10, Daroshafaei’s mother appealed to the Iranian president to free her son.

“My son has been in solitary confinement for a week for doing no wrong,” she wrote.

Iranians who have acquired dual citizenship or have lived outside the country appear to be particular targets for security forces, Human Rights Watch said. Despite repeated calls by President Rouhani encouraging Iranians in the diaspora to return, authorities have arrested and prosecuted several Iranian citizens who have done so.

Another journalist, Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian, who is a dual US-Iranian national, spent 18 months in Evin Prison before being released in a prisoner exchange between Iran and the United States in January 2016. But many other dual Iranian nationals remain in detention in Iran.

“Iran’s unaccountable security agencies run roughshod over President Hassan Rouhani’s promises of a more inclusive Iran,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Human Rights Watch’s Middle East director, today. “This pattern of arresting Iranians who were simply exercising their freedoms of expression and association while living abroad seriously undermines the notion that Iran actually welcomes having its own citizens return home.”

Read more via Human Rights Watch. 

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