Key facts
- Iranian environmentalists Houman Jokar and Sepideh Kashani were rearrested on July 1.
- Their whereabouts are currently unknown, and no reason has been provided for their detention.
- Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who previously spent six years in an Iranian jail, condemned the arrests.
- Kashani and Jokar previously worked for the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation and were arrested in 2018 on spying charges.
- Sima, Kashani's sister, was also arrested, and the couple's electronic devices were seized.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has spoken out against the rearrest of two Iranian environmentalists, Houman Jokar and Sepideh Kashani, calling the situation "unimaginably cruel and alarming." The couple, who previously worked for the now defunct Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, were arrested by Iran's ministry of intelligence at their home on July 1. No official reason has been given for their detention, and their current whereabouts are unknown.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who herself spent six years in an Iranian jail between 2016 and 2022, expressed deep concern for Kashani, whom she met at Evin prison. Kashani had previously endured two years in solitary confinement, a period Zaghari-Ratcliffe described as a "different level of torture." She noted that Kashani is not a political person and that the rearrest must be a profound ordeal for her, especially given her prior experience.
Jokar and Kashani were among a group of environmentalists arrested in 2018 on charges of using wildlife camera traps for espionage, a conviction widely condemned as baseless by the international scientific community. Despite this, the then minister of intelligence had stated that the environmentalists were not spies. Zaghari-Ratcliffe also revealed that Kashani's sister, Sima, was arrested on the same day, and all of the couple's electronic devices were confiscated. Their defense attorney, Hojjat Kermani, who also represented Zaghari-Ratcliffe, confirmed the arrests.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe highlighted Jokar's dedication to conserving Iran's critically endangered Asiatic cheetahs, noting the bizarre situation of him watching programs about his own work while imprisoned. She described Kashani as a "wonderful person" who, despite her past ordeal, remained kind and helpful to others in prison. Kashani and Jokar had stayed in Iran for family reasons and were not politically active or on social media. They have reportedly been allowed only two phone calls since their arrest.
Siamak Namazi, an Iranian-American who was imprisoned for eight years and shared a cell with Jokar, criticized the arrests, questioning how they align with the Islamic Republic's calls for "national reconciliation." He referred to the original convictions as a "notorious miscarriage of justice." The current arrests are seen as part of a severe crackdown on Iranian civil society, with Amnesty International reporting over 6,000 detentions since the start of the "US-Israeli war on Iran."