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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Can I start by asking you to stay your name and where you are actually talking to us from?
SIAMAK NAMAZI, PRISONER, EVIN PRISON: Well, my name is Siamak Namazi, and this call is being made from ward four of Evin Prison in Tehran.
AMANPOUR: Siamak, it’s a long. Long time since we last spoke, when we met in Iran. And I want to say that this is very, very unusual to speak to someone inside Evin Prison. Why are you speaking to us in this way? Why are you speaking out now?
NAMAZI: Well, Christiane, first, it’s good to hear your voice as well after so many years, directly and not under on a recording that someone’s playing back to me. I think the very fact that I’ve chosen to take this risk and appear on CNN from Evin Prison, it should just tell you how dire my situation has become by this point. I’ve been a hostage for seven and a half years now. That’s six times the duration of the hostage crisis. I keep getting told that I’m going to be rescued and deals fall apart where I get left abandoned. Honestly, the other hostages and I desperately need President Biden to finally hear us out, to finally hear our cry for help and bring us home. And I suppose desperate times call for desperate measures. So, this is a desperate measure. I’m clearly nervous. And just like it’s hard for you, it’s very intimidating for me to do this. I feel I need to be heard. I don’t know how long I have to wait until the White House understands that we need action and not just to be told that bringing us out is a priority.
AMANPOUR: Siamak, let me follow up on that because you did write an op-ed that was published in “The New York Times” in the summer —
NAMAZI: Yes.
AMANPOUR: — in which you said that, the Biden administration’s approach to rescuing Americans in distress in Iran has failed spectacularly so far. And you’ve recently gone on, I believe, a one-week hunger strike to draw attention. Tell me what you mean by failed spectacularly so far.
NAMAZI: I mean, seven and a half years in, I’m still in Evin Prison. Look, I believe that the U.S., with all its power has the superpower in the world has a great amount of leverage. And I believe that had that leverage been properly used, we would have been out a long time ago. I think what is clear is the following, that the three of us, Emad, Morad, and I, are hostages in Iran. We have not so much as jaywalked. We’ve been taken for one reason and one reason only and that’s because we are U.S. citizens. And the flipside of that is we will be only released through a deal with the U.S. You know, all I could do is repeat that seven and a half years is six times the hostage crisis. What is it going to take?
AMANPOUR: Well, I’m going to try to ask you about that, you know, what is it going to take. But first, you’re one of three Americans in Evin. They are detained on so-called charges of espionage, but you are not. You are detained and sentenced on other charges. Do you have any awareness —
NAMAZI: Sorry, I need to correct you on that. We all have the same charge. We are all charged under section 508, which is a very nebulous charge of cooperating with a hostile state, in our case, referring to the United States of America. We — none of us have had access — I’ll just speak for myself though, but we don’t — we are ordinary citizens. We don’t have access to any classified information to give to anyone. Which is why we were charged with section 508, cooperating with a hostile state and you’re very free to ask details about that.
AMANPOUR: Yes, I want to know whether you are in the same location as the other Americans, Morad Tahbaz, Emad Shargi.
NAMAZI: Yes, I currently am. We have not always been. All three of us were at the same detention center at different times. Obviously, I was taken two years and two and a half respectively before Morad and Emad. But today, we’re all in the same place.
AMANPOUR: And do you hope to all be released together?
NAMAZI: Absolutely. I know what it feels like to be left behind. And I wouldn’t wish it upon my worst enemy. We are all in this together and I hope that this solution is found for all of us together.
AMANPOUR: Siamak, you wrote this letter to President Biden recently. And I’m going to quote a little bit from it, “Day after day, I ignore the intense pain that I always carry with me and do my best to fight this grave injustice. All I want, sir, is one minute of your day’s time for the next seven days devoted to thinking about the tribulations of the U.S. hostages in Iran.” Did you get any personal response to that letter, Siamak?
NAMAZI: I’ve never had any response. This is what makes things particularly painful. President Biden has been in office for 25 months now. You’ve got to excuse me, this is hard.
AMANPOUR: I know it’s hard.
NAMAZI: It’s hard to expose yourself to the world.
About This Episode EXPAND
Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi has been imprisoned in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison for seven years. In an exclusive interview, he tells Christiane that he desperately needs President Biden’s help. Vali Nasr, a former senior adviser at the U.S. State Department, discusses U.S.-Iran relations. Journalist Michael R. Gordon says the world could be entering an era of “great power” conflict.
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