At least one other Iranian with British connections arrested recently is a dual citizen of Britain and Iran. Abbas Edalat, an academic and antiwar activist, was arrested in mid-April, an Iranian judicial official confirmed last week. Mr. Edalat, a professor of computer science and mathematics at the Imperial College of London, had been invited to speak at an academic event in Tehran.
The fate of another British-Iranian dual citizen, Mahan Abedin, is somewhat murkier. A writer and analyst generally favorable to the Iranian government, Mr. Abedin failed to return as scheduled on April 29 from a visit with family in Iran, said his publisher, Michael Hurst. His only contact with Mr. Abedin, he said, has been a brief note saying he was “fine” and to “please stop contacting me.”
Iran Wire, a news website run by expatriate Iranian journalists, said on Monday that Mr. Abedin had been arrested on suspicion he conspired in an “infiltration” operation.
Iran’s motivations in such arrests are not always clear, but analysts generally tie them to policy disputes with the countries involved. Iran is currently holding about 30 dual citizens, among them at least five Iranian-Americans whose fate could be tied to President Trump’s self-imposed May 12 deadline to decide whether to scrap the 2015 nuclear agreement.
Iran and the United States negotiated a mutual release of prisoners after the nuclear deal took effect in January 2016.
Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said in April that Iran was open to prisoner talks, “If the United States changes its attitude.”
At least two dual citizens of Britain and Iran have been imprisoned by the Iranian authorities on vaguely defined charges of espionage. Kamal Foroughi, a business consultant, has been held since 2011 and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a researcher for the Thomson Reuters Foundation charity, has been detained since 2016.
Source : Nytimes
