display
Mariam Claren doesn't know why her mother was arrested.
It was never politically active.
As an architect, she has been commuting between Germany and Iran for years and has never had any problems.
Then, on October 16, 2020, the mother was arrested in her Tehran apartment.
Nahid Taghavi was taken to the notorious Evin prison in the Iranian capital and has been in isolation there ever since.
The 66-year-old German-Iranian has been in custody for more than three months.
There are still no charges; according to the daughter, she is denied access to a lawyer, as well as consular support from the German embassy.
The daughter finds solace in people who can empathize with her need.
By people who were once imprisoned in an Iranian prison.
And from the relatives of those people who are being held prisoner in Iran today.
“The solidarity among families is unprecedented,” says Mariam Claren.
She received a lot of calls at Christmas.
“The families know that the first Christmas is the hardest.
It was really touching. "
display
Last week Claren's uncles, the two brothers Nahid Taghavis, were given permission to visit their sister in prison.
The brothers describe the encounter as follows: They talked to their sister for half an hour, separated by a pane of glass, guarded by revolutionary guards.
Mariam Claren fears for her imprisoned mother
Source: Claren private archive
Nahid Taghavi looked stable.
Then Nahid Taghavi was blindfolded and taken away.
The brothers then went to the responsible public prosecutor.
When she asked why the sister was not allowed to be represented by her lawyer, the officer replied: "We only allow lawyers who we trust to inspect files."
The Cologne CDU member of the Bundestag Heribert Hirte is in close contact with Mariam Claren and followed the case from the beginning.
He considers the Iranian government's dealings with Nahid Taghavi to be clearly unlawful: “The Iranian authorities and those responsible in Evin prison are clearly violating international legal standards such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Iran has signed. "
display
It remains in the dark what Nahid Taghavi is accused of.
What is the aim of the Iranian government with the detention?
Dual nationals should not travel to Iran
In mid-November, the Foreign Office issued a warning to German-Iranian dual nationals: Travel that is not necessary is "strongly discouraged".
From government circles it is said that the warning was due to the increasing number of incarcerations of dual nationals in the recent past.
"The Iranian leadership arrested Western citizens on flimsy allegations as early as the 1990s," says Guido Steinberg, Islamic scholar and Middle East expert at the Science and Politics Foundation in Berlin.
"The question is: why did she resume this policy?"
display
Numerous people with dual nationalities have been captured while in Iran in recent years.
Two prominent cases were Jason Rezaian, American, and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, from Great Britain.
Rezaian is now free, and Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been in custody for about five years.
Mariam Claren is in contact with both families.
Guido Steinberg sees two possible explanations for the increased number of captures.
The first is political: hardliners in the regime could use such detentions to torpedo a possible détente between the USA and Iran under Joe Biden's presidency - in order to prevent a new version of the nuclear agreement that Donald Trump had canceled.
The Middle East expert believes the second explanation is more likely: "In the past, such hostage-taking - I call it that - such state-hostage-taking served specific purposes."
Free pressings by the Iranian state
Until now, one such goal has regularly been the release of Iranian government members imprisoned in Western countries.
The Islamic Republic has always had success with it.
Roland Marchal of France, Michael White and Xiyue Wang of the United States, all released in exchange for Iranian prisoners.
The last prominent case was the British-Australian Islam researcher Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who was imprisoned in Iran for over two years.
Three Iranians were released for their release in November, two of them terror suspects.
A possible target in the Taghavi case could be the freeing of Assadollah Assadi.
The Iranian diplomat and alleged secret service worker was arrested by the German police in Bavaria in mid-2018.
He is accused of having prepared an attack against exiled Iranians in Paris.
The plan was caught.
Assadi was extradited to Belgium - a verdict is expected in early February.
Assadi faces 20 years imprisonment.
Nahid Taghavi could have got involved in the international dispute over the case without his own intervention.
Whether it was coincidence that she was arrested, or targeted action by Iran, can only be speculated about.
The Bundestag member Omid Nouripour from Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen, who is also involved in Nahid Taghavi's case, calls for political consequences.
"The federal government should take the initiative together with European partners such as France, Austria and Great Britain, whose nationals are also imprisoned," he says.
One such initiative could be the imposition of sanctions.
Wenzel Michalski, Director of Human Rights Watch in Germany, also calls for European cooperation for the prisoners and consequences for Tehran: “Those responsible must be held internationally accountable.
Nobody is above the law.
That must be clearly communicated to the Iranian government. "
display
The federal government is reluctant.
From the Foreign Office it is said in a very general way that there are ongoing discussions with EU partners about the imposition of sanctions against Iranian persons responsible for human rights violations.
The Taghavi case had been raised several times with the Iranian side.
The human rights commissioner of the federal government, Bärbel Kofler, is "of course known" about the case, she says on request.
They "continue to stand up for Ms. Taghavi", and the colleagues in Tehran tried to get consular access.
So Mariam Claren continues to worry about her mother - together with other relatives.
She recently spoke to the young daughter of the arrested British woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, says Claren.
“I told her that our two mothers are in Iran right now.
I wanted to give her the feeling that she is not alone. ”Mariam Claren and the other families will probably need mutual support in the future as well.
The circle of prisoners of the Iranian government does not seem to be getting any smaller for the time being.
This text is from WELT AM SONNTAG. We will be happy to deliver them to your home on a regular basis.
Source: Welt am Sonntag