The Islamic Republic is currently holding several United States citizens in its notorious detention infrastructure, including two who were abducted following the 12-day war waged by the theocracy against Israel in June, according to a report earlier this month by The New York Times.
Citing several human rights organizations, the newspaper identified the unnamed hostages as two men and two women who were taken into custody while traveling to the Persian Gulf nation to visit family members. Three of the individuals are reportedly in unknown locations, while the fourth, a California woman charged with ‘espionage,’ had her passports confiscated and was placed under monitoring and movement restrictions.
Two regime officials anonymously told The Times that the purpose of the arrests was to capture operatives “linked to Israel and the United States.”
The U.S. State Department confirmed that its staff were “closely monitoring” the situation prior to urging Tehran to “immediately free all unjustly detained individuals in Iran.”
Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, the extremist administration has often arrested dual nationals and Western residents to use their release as negotiating leverage with their home countries. On June 15, Sweden’s government agreed to parole mass murderer Hamid Nouri in exchange for the freedom of two of its citizens who were wrongfully incarcerated. Nouri, a former prison official, was convicted in Stockholm in 2022 and sentenced to life in prison for his role in killing and torturing at least 5,000 Iranian political dissidents.
