{"id":1871,"date":"2016-10-26T17:18:38","date_gmt":"2016-10-26T14:18:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arabiangcis.org\/english\/?p=1871"},"modified":"2016-10-26T17:18:38","modified_gmt":"2016-10-26T14:18:38","slug":"captive-iranian-american-man-in-iran-gets-18-year-sentence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/news\/captive-iranian-american-man-in-iran-gets-18-year-sentence\/","title":{"rendered":"Captive Iranian-American man in Iran gets 18-year sentence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robin Shahini, a 46-year-old graduate student from San Diego state in May. 2016, went to Iran to visit his sick mother. Now, the Iranian-American man held in Tehran in a secret location by Iranian authorities and sentenced to 18 years in prison for \u201ccollaboration with a hostile government,\u201d another dual national convicted in a secret trial since the Iranian nuclear deal with world powers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shahini who lived in San Diego for 16 years, supported a controversial political movement in Iran several years ago. The president in power at the time has long been gone; Shahini figured his political past would not be a problem.
\nThe Washington Post reported that the sentence handed down to Robin Shahini is the harshest yet for those detained in what analysts believe is hard-liner plan to use them as bargaining chips in future negotiations.
\nShahini told Vice News in an interview aired late Monday that he \u201cjust laughed\u201d after hearing his sentence. He acknowledged supporting the protests that followed Iran\u2019s disputed 2009 presidential election but denied being involved in any spying.
\n\u201cWhatever information they had is all the pictures I posted on Facebook, on my web blog, and they use all those (as) evidence to accuse me,\u201d Shahini said in a telephone call from prison.
\nIranian judiciary officials did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press on Tuesday, nor did Iran\u2019s mission to the United Nations.
\nIn a statement, the U.S. State Department said it was troubled by reports of Shahini\u2019s sentence.
\n\u201cWe reaffirm our calls on Iran to respect and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms, cease arbitrary and politically motivated detentions and ensure fair and transparent judicial proceedings,\u201d it said.
\nShahini, who traveled to Iran to see his mother who was diagnosed with Alzheimer\u2019s disease, was detained on July 11. He left Iran in 1998 and has lived in San Diego for 16 years. He graduated in May from San Diego State University with a degree in International Security and Conflict Resolution and had been accepted to SDSU\u2019s graduate program in Homeland Security.
\nShahini\u2019s girlfriend, who also lives in San Diego, said she spoke to him after he received word of his sentence.
\n\u201cWe both just cried,\u201d she told The Associated Press. \u201cWe didn\u2019t know how to react. It was just a joke or nightmare; I didn\u2019t know what to call it.\u201d
\nThe girlfriend asked not to be identified because she has family in Iran and fears for their safety. She said she has been able to communicate with Shahini regularly and he has told her that his detention has been mentally tough. His cell has no natural light, and he has no idea what time of day it is.
\nIran does not recognize dual nationalities, meaning that those it detains cannot receive consular assistance. In most cases, dual nationals have faced secret charges in closed-door hearings before Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Court, which handles cases involving alleged attempts to overthrow the government.
\nAnalysts and family members of those detained in Iran have suggested that hard-liners in the Islamic Republic\u2019s security agencies want to negotiate another deal with the West to free the detainees.
\nA prisoner exchange in January that freed Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian and three other Iranian-Americans also saw the U.S. make a $400 million cash delivery to Iran the same day. The payment of that cash, part of a $1.7 billion settlement of a decades-old arbitration claim between the United States and Iran, has drawn criticism from Republicans including presidential candidate Donald Trump, who describe it as a ransom payment.
\nIn September, Iran freed retired Canadian-Iranian university professor Homa Hoodfar amid negotiations to reopen embassies in the two nations.
\nLast week, Iran\u2019s judiciary announced it handed down 10-year prison sentences to Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi and his 80-year-old father, Baquer Namazi . Iran is earlier sentenced Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian woman traveling with her young daughter, to five years in prison on allegations of planning the \u201csoft toppling\u201d of Iran\u2019s government.
\nStill missing is former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who vanished in Iran in 2007 while on an unauthorized CIA mission.
\nFor Shahini, he said he wasn\u2019t sure whether he\u2019d file an appeal, but said he also had another option to protest his sentence.
\n\u201cI do a hunger strike \u2014 until either they free me or I die,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robin Shahini, a 46-year-old graduate student from San Diego state in May. 2016, went to Iran to visit his sick mother. Now, the Iranian-American man held in Tehran in a secret location by Iranian authorities and sentenced to 18 years in prison for \u201ccollaboration with a hostile government,\u201d another dual national convicted in a secret […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":1872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[891,113,895,618,439,892,12,263,136,894,893,889,887,888,886,890,412],"class_list":["post-1871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-alzheimer","tag-american","tag-cia","tag-fbi","tag-hoodfar","tag-international-security","tag-iran","tag-iranian","tag-judiciary","tag-levinson","tag-namazi","tag-post","tag-robin-shahini","tag-san-diego","tag-sentence","tag-spying","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1871"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1873,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1871\/revisions\/1873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}