"I am at my breaking point," Swedish-Iranian professor Ahmad Reza Djalali tells VRT’s Inge Vrancken in a new audio message. Tomorrow it’s exactly nine years since Djalali was arrested in Iran. Since then, he has been locked up in the notorious Evin prison in the capital Tehran. He risks being executed there. Djalali calls on the EU and the Swedish government to do more for his release.
Cry for help from VUB professor Djalali from Iranian prison: ‘European decision-makers will be partly responsible for my death’
Colin Clapson
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Updated:
After 9 years in captivity Ahmad Reza Djalali describes how the inhuman conditions he experiences in prison have led to numerous illnesses including heart function failure, gastritis, intestinal disorders and severe weight loss. I am really at my breaking point, Djalali says.
He calls on the European Union and the Swedish government to do more for his release. ‘Otherwise, I will die here, either by execution or disease,’ he notes.
Audio message April 2025
Who Ahmad Reza Djalali?
Ahmad Reza Djalali worked as a doctor of disaster medicine. For years, he conducted research at the world famous Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. But he also worked as a visiting professor at the Free University of Brussels, the VUB, and was attached to a research group at Italy's UPO University in Navarro.
He was arrested on 25 April 2016 in Tehran during a lecture tour of Iran. The Iranian authorities accused him of spying for Israel. After a mock trial, the professor was sentenced to death. This triggered fierce criticism worldwide, including from the European Union and the United Nations.
Misses prisoner swap
Djalali feels discriminated against by the Swedish and Belgian governments. In the audio message he says that several times he has been used as a bargaining chip in potential prisoner swaps.
Djalali and everyone around him had hoped he would be swapped for Iranian terrorist Assadollah Assadi, convicted in Belgium. The latter had been sentenced to 20 years in prison for planning an attack targeting Iranian opposition figures in Paris.
But Assadi was not exchanged for Djalali - who has a clear link to Belgium through his work for the VUB - but rather for Olivier Vandecasteele, the Belgian NGO worker unjustly detained in an Iranian cell for 456 days. Vandecasteele was released as part of an exchange on 26 May 2023.
Even when Iran and Sweden struck a deal on a prisoner swap last year, Djalali was not involved. Iran let EU diplomat Johan Floderus and Swede Saeed Azizi go in exchange for the release of Iranian Hamid Nouri. Late last year in Stockholm the former prison official was sentenced to life for his role in executions and torture of dissidents in Iranian prisons in 1988.
Djalali provides a clear message in his audio clip. 'An end to my torture requires real and joint action by the European Union and the Swedish government. Otherwise, these governments will be partly responsible for my death.'
Audio message April 2025
Commemoration outside Iranian embassy
Today a commemoration will take place in front of the Iranian embassy in Brussels to again draw attention to Djalali's fate. Here, Vida Mehrannia, Djalali's wife, will also be present.
Speaking to VRT NWS, she says she is desperate. ‘Every day I dread the phonecall when somebody will tell me they have executed him. How many years have I been fighting for this case?’. She too feels that Sweden can do more. At the same time, she calls for cooperation among European countries. According to Mehrannia, it is time for a united Europe to take a stand against Iranian politics and oppression.
The commemoration is organised by Amnesty International. The organisation has been fighting for Djajali's release for years. ‘There seems to be no end to this nightmare for Dr Djalali and his family,’ says Wies De Graeve, director of Amnesty International Flanders. ‘For nine years already, this injustice has continued. Every day he risks being executed. He is also not receiving the necessary medical care".