The Swedish-Iranian researcher Ahmadreza Djalali is starting a hunger strike on Wednesday in protest against the Swedish government, according to his wife Vida Mehrannia for Aftonbladet.
"Ahmadreza now feels that he has no other choice but to go on a hunger strike. He has already suffered nearly 3,000 days of unbearable torment in Iran's prison cells and is in extremely poor health", she writes to the newspaper.
Ahmadreza Djalali, a doctor and researcher at the Karolinska Institute, has been imprisoned in the notorious Evin Prison in Iran since he was arrested in 2016, accused of espionage. In October 2017, he was sentenced to death. The following year, Djalali became a Swedish citizen.
Recently, the Swedes Johan Floderus and Saeed Azizi were released from Evin Prison through a prisoner exchange. This sparked great frustration from Djalali and his wife, who have, among other things, accused Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson (The Moderate Party) of leaving Djalali helpless.
According to Vida Mehrannia's statement, the hunger strike is taking place "in protest against the Swedish government's decision to leave Djalali behind".
"This hunger strike is very life-threatening, Ahmadreza knows this better than anyone else – but he sees no other alternative"."
The government has previously stated that they tried to include Djalali in the prisoner exchange, but Iran refused to discuss his case, as he is only seen as an Iranian citizen.
We have negotiated the best possible deal for Sweden. Had we locked ourselves into a deal that only included Djalali, our very firm opinion is that we would not have achieved anything at all, said Ulf Kristersson earlier.
