- Jamshid Sharmahd, 67, faces public execution for being a journalist.
- He was involved in a 2008 terrorist attack on a mosque in Shiraz, Iran.
- The trial is intended to find a scapegoat for the bombing and to “persecute dissidents and activists”.
Jamshid Sharmahd, a legal US resident and California-based resident, faces public execution for being a journalist.
Sharmahd’s daughter Gazelle told a reputed Media organization from California that a Tehran regime lawyer told the family that a “death sentence is certain.” Gazelle stated that the sixth hearing in her father’s “sham trial” could take place this week. The Iranian regime refused to allow Sharmahd to be represented by an independent lawyer.
The clerical regime kidnapped Sharmahd, 67, in July 2020 while he was staying in a hotel in Dubai. Sharmahd has been a resident of California since 2003.
According to Tehran’s murky justice system, Sharmahd was involved in a 2008 terrorist attack on a mosque in Shiraz, Iran, which killed 14 people and injured more than 200.
However, in 2008, the regime-controlled media quoted the Iranian National Security Council as saying, “The use of a bomb or any other type of explosive by opposition elements, whether internal or external, is prohibited. Some munitions used in an exhibition for [Iran-Iraq War] martyrs in the mosque caused the blast.”
The trial, according to Gazelle, is intended to find a scapegoat for the 2008 bombing and to “persecute dissidents and activists.”
Sharmahd worked as a radio journalist in California, exposing the widespread dissatisfaction among Iranian citizens with the theocratic state.
“My father set up a website where activists [in Iran] could post articles, and he talked about it on his radio show,” Gazelle explained.
Germany, Iran’s most important trade partner for decades, has come under fire for failing to prioritise Sharmahd’s case and secure his release.
“I don’t see true actions from Germany. If Germany wants to rescue my dad, they can. They have the resources,” said Gazelle.
Kazem Moussavi, a German-Iranian dissident and spokesman for the Green Party of Iran in exile, said “The regime in Iran is determined to execute the Iranian opposition figure and German citizen Jamshid Sharmahd.
“I’ll say frankly: His only chance of survival is if the [Berlin] federal government acts consistently and immediately. I call on Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock to unequivocally demand that the ayatollahs release Jamshid Sharmahd immediately and to stress that Germany will sever relations with the regime and severely sanction it if there is an execution.”
For Gazelle, the foreign ministry statement was just another platitude she and her family had been hearing for the 720 days her Parkinson’s disease-stricken father had been held in isolation.
“All of his teeth, with the exception of two, have fallen out. They are emotionally and psychologically torturing Jimmy. And the German government just says we condemn the death penalty in general. They have to do something.”
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