Iran’s hostage policy

BY: Ramin Jalali - On October 19 Iranian officials announced that Iranian-American Baquer Namazi and his son Siamak have been sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined $4.8 million. Iranian officials announced that five people were convicted and sentenced for "cooperating with Iran's enemies". The sentence comes after the Obama administration paid Iran $1.7 billion last January— at around the same time the country released a number of American hostages. The Obama Administration says the January payment was part of a legal settlement and in no way an act of ransom, but Iranian officials in the Iranian media have announced that the cash was a ransom payment for releasing of the prisoners.

That ransom has emboldened Iran to ask for more money, and now they are using their old policy and taking more hostages for more ransom.

The Iranian regime has a long history of hostage taking. The most famous case is the 1979 hostage crisis, where 52 Americans were taken hostage for 444 days in Tehran. Furthermore hostage taking became their official policy and for years they were taking westerners hostage in Lebanon and other countries by their proxy organizations.

Due to lack of firmness by the current US administration, Iran is now resorting to the same policy of hostage taking for more ransom. The current hostage taker is Rouhani’s so called “moderate” government; and through the US Treasury department has eased economic restrictions to do business with the Europeans. Rohani  is the same government that has executed more than 2,000 people during its term.  Based on a statement by the U.N., Iran had the world’s biggest death penalty per capita last year. The statement says only in 2015 at least 966 people were reportedly executed. Just on October 19, 2016 Rouhani sent 14 prisoners in the Qezel-Hessar prison in the city of Karaj to the gallows. Furthermore Mostafa Pour Mohammadi, the Justice Minister of Rouhani, was a member of 4-man death committee of mass executions of 1988. This committee was in charge of implementing Ayatollah Khomeini’s decree for the massacre of political prisoners in which over 30,000 political prisoners—most of whom were members and supports of the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MeK)—were executed.

Rouhani’s government is in such a dreadful economic, political, and social condition that is compelled to put aside its fake moderate face, and by taking its foreign sympathizers hostage, shed light on its true nature. Siamak Namazi was a strong advocate of closer U.S. economic ties to Iran, and before his arrest he was working with the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a pro-Iran lobby based in Washington. The Iranian regime has no mercy even for its foreign supports and takes them hostage.

The behavior of Iranian regime is the byproduct of West’s appeasement policy. Treating this tyrannical regime as a moderate government only emboldens it to continue its domestic oppression and terrorism abroad. This regime is in power solely due to its suppression and daily execution of tens of its citizens.  Hence the right policy towards state sponsor of terrorism is not appeasement, but to impose sanctions on Iranian regime, and any economic and political relation with this regime must be conditioned to complete halt of executions and torture.