The daughter of Iranian-American environmental activist, who also holds British citizenship, Morad Tahbaz, announced that she has lost faith in U.S. President Joe Biden's efforts to secure her father's release from an Iranian prison. Tahbaz has spent five years in prison and faces another five years after being convicted of espionage. He was briefly released and placed under house arrest with an electronic monitoring device in March 2022 when two other dual nationals, including British-Iranian humanitarian worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, were allowed to leave Iran.
In July, his lawyer was quoted as saying that he had been granted bail, but his daughter stated that he was returned to prison. Tara Tahbaz, speaking in Madrid, where she came from the United States to visit relatives, said, "I was told, I believe, since Biden took office that our citizens are a priority, but I have not seen any action; it's hard to hold onto hope."
She added that her family and other American relatives imprisoned in Iran hope that Biden will give them an opportunity to explain their situation in a meeting in Washington scheduled for next month. She urged the U.S. government to demand the release of Tahbaz and other individuals, Emad Sharghi and Siamak Namazi, all detained on espionage charges that Washington claims are baseless.
State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel wrote on Twitter on Saturday: "We again call on Iran to stop unjustly imprisoning foreign nationals as a means of political leverage and to release American citizens Emad Sharghi, Morad Tahbaz, and Siamak Namazi."
