The State Department updated its travel warning to Iran on Monday, warning U.S. citizens that they can be “unjustly detained” if they travel to the Islamic Republic.
The announcement, which replaced a travel warning issued on March 14, was meant “to reiterate and highlight the risk of arrest and detention of U.S. citizens, particularly dual national Iranian-Americans.”
“Iranian authorities continue to unjustly detain and imprison U.S. citizens, particularly Iranian-Americans, including students, journalists, business travelers, and academics, on charges including espionage and posing a threat to national security,” the State Department wrote. “Iranian authorities have also prevented the departure, in some cases for months, of a number of Iranian-American citizens who traveled to Iran for personal or professional reasons.”
The warning further cautioned that Iran “does not recognize dual citizenship and will not allow the Swiss to provide protective services for U.S. citizens who are also Iranian nationals.”
Last month, the United Kingdom upgraded its travel warning due to the risk that its citizens could be “arbitrarily detained.”
Reuters reported in July that the six dual nationals arrested in Iran in recent months comprised “the highest number of Iranians with dual-nationality detained at one time in recent years to have been acknowledged.” Earlier this month, a seventh dual national was arrested, but details remain murky about that person’s identity.
Iranian authorities arrested dual American-Iranian citizen Reza “Robin” Shahini, who was visiting his ailing mother, in July. Other detainees include Parviz Tanavoli, a prominent Iranian-Canadian sculptor, who was barred from leaving Iran last month; Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an employee of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, who was forcibly separated from her toddler daughter as they prepared to leave Iran in April; Homa Hoodfar, a Canadian-Iranian scholar who was arrested earlier this year when she returned to Iran to see her family; Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi and his father, Baquer Namazi; British-Iranian businessman Kamal Foroughi; and Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese national with U.S. permanent residency.
Iran also briefly detained Japan’s ambassador in April, prompting Japan to file a complaint with Iran’s foreign ministry for violating diplomatic immunity.
[Photo: Loren / Flickr ]