Detained Iranian-American Man Allowed To Leave Iran

An Iranian-American man who has been detained in Iran since 2016 after landing in Tehran to see his imprisoned son was permitted to leave Iran to receive medical treatment, and his son was given a furlough from Tehran’s Evin prison on a one-week, renewable furlough, the United Nations announced over the weekend.

Baquer Namazi, 85, is the ex-governor of Iran’s Khuzestan province and a former UNICEF representative. He was detained in 2016 when he traveled to Tehran to see his son, Siamak, a businessman who had been arrested in Iran months earlier. Both Namazis were convicted in Iran of “collaboration with a hostile government” in 2016 and sentenced to 10 years in prison, with the United States and the United Nations calling them trumped-up charges.

Baquer Namazi’s sentence was commuted to time served after he received a medical furlough in 2018, but he was not permitted to leave the country until now. It is not known if Siamak Namazi’s furlough is movement toward his full release.