The daughter of an environmental activist jailed by Iran said on Saturday that she has no faith in US President Joe Biden’s efforts to free her father.
Iranian-American Morad Dahbaz, a British citizen, has served five years of a 10-year sentence for espionage.
In March 2022, when two dual nationals, including British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, were allowed to leave Iran, she was briefly placed under house arrest with an electronic tag.
In July, his lawyer said he was released on bail, but he is now back in jail, his daughter said.
“I think it’s hard to keep the faith since Biden took office that our loved ones were a priority and then took no action,” Tara Dahbas told Reuters in Madrid while visiting relatives from the United States.
She said her family in Iran and relatives of the two other American detainees hoped Biden would give them time to tell their stories at a meeting in Washington next month.
He said his father, now 67, was suffering from prostate cancer and contracted Covid-19 three times while in prison.
The US has urged Iran to release Tahbaz and two citizens, Emad Sharqi and Siamak Namazi, who have been jailed on espionage charges, all of which are unfounded.
US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel tweeted on Saturday: “We reiterate our call on Iran to stop unjustly detaining foreigners for political influence and to release US citizens Emad Sharqi, Morad Tahbas and Siamak Namasi.”
In 2016, oil executive Namasi was jailed for 10 years on charges of spying for the US government. Sharkey was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2021.
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