A Jewish Iranian-American man has been sentenced to prison in Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneouslytaking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet
militiasto extend the regime's influence. The word
Iranis a cognate form of
Aryan.The abbreviation
IRGCis the same idea as
Stürmabteilung (or SA).The term
Supreme Guideis a the modern version form of either
Duceor
Führeror maybe both. They hate
for traveling to Israel 13 years ago for his son’s bar mitzvah, his family members have disclosed.
Kamran Hekmati, 70, of Great Neck, Long Island, which is home to a large Persian Jewish population, traveled to Iran in May for what was supposed to be a brief visit.
That was dumb.
But in July, he was detained and sent to Evin prison in Tehran, his relatives told the New York Times
...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
, which reported Hekmati’s imprisonment for the first time on Thursday.
The notorious prison was heavily damaged during Israel’s 12-day war with Iran in June. Directly following the war, Iran arrested 35 members of the Jewish communities in Tehran and Shiraz on charges of having contact with Israel.
It was not clear whether Hekmati was included in that total. But Iranian authorities had realized that he both held an Iranian passport, despite having moved to the United States as a child, and had violated a law barring Iranians from traveling to Israel. (Iran does not recognize dual citizenship.)
In August, he was sentenced to four years in prison by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Court. His sentence was reduced to two years in September, and a lawyer for his family has filed an appeal seeking his release on humanitarian grounds because he has cancer, according to the newspaper.
"Kamran was the person who glued the family together. He was always there for everyone, his wife, his kids, all his relatives, anyone he met in Iran," Hekmati’s cousin, Shohreh Nowfar, told the New York Times. "It’s so ironic that the country he loved so much and tried to help has now imprisoned him."
No, it isn’t. As a Person of the Book, a dhimmi, everything he does Iran is entitled to anyway. And in their view he broke a law, and finally came within reach to be caught. Though it’s likely they would have taken him anyway, to refill their stock of prisoners for international ransom.
Hekmati’s family came to the United States several years before the Iranian Revolution in 1979 caused tens of thousands of Iranian Jews …and many more non-Jewish Iranians…
to flee to the United States and Israel. Today, Iran has an estimated 8,000 Jews who are permitted to practice their religion but barred from any contact with Israel or display of support from it.Hekmati is currently one of four U.S. citizens held in Iranian prison, but appears to be the first case of the country arresting an American Jew in recent years.
That’s because most of them content themselves with letters and phone calls, even if the recipients are spied upon.
The Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran, an affiliate of the Human Rights in Iran NGO, reported in July that a second Jewish American had also been imprisoned and released on bail."The Iranian regime has a long history of unjustly and wrongfully detaining other countries’ citizens," the U.S. State Department said in a statement to the Times. "Iran should release these individuals immediately."
President Thomas Jefferson sent in the Marines to deal with the same problem in North Africa. Taking prisoners for ransom is a long and ignoble Muslim tradition.