Siamak Namazi, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was arbitrarily arrested while visiting his native country of Iran for a memorial service in 2015.
Subsequently sentenced to 10 years in prison for "collaborating with a foreign government," unclear charges he denied, Namazi ended up being the longest-held Iranian-American prisoner until his release along with four other Americans last year in a controversial prisoner exchange.
In a rare interview with RFE/RL's Radio Farda ahead of the anniversary of his September 18, 2023, release, Namazi described the ill-treatment and interrogations he endured at Tehran's Evin prison during his eight years of incarceration and his mixed feelings upon being freed after being held "hostage" by Iran.
"I was in disbelief. I was both very happy to be released and deeply troubled that I was being traded like a slave," Namazi said. "I consider myself a child of Iran and an adopted child of the United States. I love both countries and tried to be a good citizen to both.”
Incredible Yet Sad
Namazi said that while the feeling of being freed "was incredible," he was also stepping into a world that "no longer felt familiar."
"There was also a deep sadness that it ended this way," he said of a process in which he felt he was denied justice by a system trying to profit from his imprisonment.
"I served eight out of a 10-year sentence before being exchanged. I lost Iran in the process. Eight years of prison, filled with harsh treatments," Namazi recalled, describing his incarceration in one of the most notoriously harsh wards of Evin prison.
"It wasn't normal. I spent 27 months in ward '2A,' where those who were detained and interrogated [know what it's like]. I was interrogated for more than two years."
He initially struggled to convince his guards and some of his fellow inmates that he was a "real" Iranian and that his treatment was unjust.
About six weeks prior to being flown out of Iran, Namazi was released from Evin prison and taken to a highly secured hotel in central Tehran.
Under constant watch by members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Namazi and the four other U.S. citizens who would be part of a prisoner swap awaited their fate under what he described as ridiculous circumstances.
"Some of their actions, you don’t know whether to laugh or cry," he said of his IRGC guards.
The guards would not tell the prisoners where they were, and made it clear that "if anyone found out where we were, they'd move us," Namazi said.
Iran's judiciary had ordered that the prisoners be fitted with ankle monitors and allowed to move within a 1-kilometer radius, but the IRGC was wary that hackers would be able to determine their location.
And while the IRGC wanted no attention paid to the prisoners, when they were eventually allowed to move around, they were followed closely by IRGC members whose distinctive presence drew public attention, Namazi says.
Controversial Exchange
Namazi and the four other Americans -- Morad Tahbaz, an environmental activist detained in 2018; Emad Shargi, arrested while visiting Iran in 2018, and two others not publicly named -- were ultimately freed in exchange for the release of around $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets.
The funds were transferred to Qatar where they were to be closely supervised and released only on condition that they be used for humanitarian purposes.
After Hamas -- a U.S.- and EU-designated terrorist group with ties to Iran -- carried out a deadly assault on Israel on October 7, the deal came under heavy criticism that it was aiding Iran's regional ambitions. Shortly afterward, the United States and Qatar agreed to deny Iran access to the $6 billion.
Under the deal that led to the release of the five Americans, clemency was also granted to five Iranians or Iranian-Americans who had been charged or convicted in the United States of violating sanctions against Iran. Some with U.S. citizenship were allowed the possibility of remaining in the United States.
"From the perspective of the Islamic republic, we were like $6 billion walking on two legs," Namazi said. "That's why there was such bizarre protection over us. It's kind of funny; there's always some comedy and absurdity in their system. On one hand, they play these spy games, and on the other, we had to eat in the hotel lobby. Where else could we go?"
After being denied the right to leave the hotel for weeks, Nazami was eventually allowed two nights a week to visit Saei Park, which abuts Tehran's Valiasr Street, the scene of unprecedented antiestablishment protests that had erupted in Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini in September 2022.
Siamak Namazi wears a "For Sale!" T-shirt while in Evin prison.
On the anniversary of Amini's September 16 death in police custody for allegedly improperly wearing her hijab, Namazi saw ordinary Iranians singing protest songs and got to see the reactions of his IRGC guards.
"We had a guard who was twice my size, a true giant," Namazi recalled. "He said: 'Siamak, can people in your country protest and not get told off?'"
Namazi was incredulous at the idea that he was not considered to be an Iranian by his captors.
"I said, let's start from here; what do you mean by 'your country'? You weren't even born when I grew up in this park," Namazi said he told the guard. "I truly grew up in Saei Park. I have childhood memories of every inch of this park since before you even existed. I was born in Apadana Hospital. What do you mean?"
Namazi said he demanded that the guard declare that "this place belongs to Siamak" or he would begin shouting. "You need to understand that you are selling out a child of Iran," he told the guard, who declared his innocence.
"You're responsible for protection, for transport. You have a role in this ugly historical act," Namazi responded.
While on a trip to Iran to see his imprisoned son in 2016, Siamak's father, Baquer, was also arbitrarily detained, sentenced, and imprisoned for allegedly cooperating with U.S. intelligence agencies to spy on Iran. Baquer, at the age of 85, was released in October 2022 for medical treatment as the antiestablishment protests were spreading across Iran.
'Us And Them'
The younger Namazi, who just turned 53, says that he had been accustomed to being seen as an outsider while living in Africa in his youth with his father, a former provincial governor in Iran prior to the 1979 Islamic Revolution and a representative for UNICEF who worked in Kenya, Somalia, and Egypt.
"This philosophy of 'us and them' gets so thick that it enables you to bring calamity upon another human being," Namazi said. "To do these things to another human, you have to strip them of their humanity. They don’t see him as a human. And in the Islamic republic, what happens is that we have these circles of 'us and them.' The interrogators certainly saw us as 'them.'"
It did not matter if "you were Iranian or not," Namazi said, adding that his interrogator "knew that at least 99 percent of what he was saying was completely fabricated."
Since his release, Namazi has strongly advocated for the release of other prisoners, including the Swedish-Iranian physician Ahmadreza Djalali, held by the Iranian authorities. His year out of prison has left Namazi with a message for Tehran, which he said had made the "selling" of its own people, like himself, "routine."
"Don't trade them. Don't barter them," Namazi said of Iranians with foreign citizenship who remain imprisoned under false pretexts in Iran.
"Release them using the laws of the Islamic republic, then we can sit down and talk, and in my opinion, this is a very reasonable starting point."