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'Pawn in a political game': Sister of EU diplomat captive in Iran calls for his release
euronews (in English)
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04/02/2024
The sister of Johan Floderus, the 33-year-old Swedish EU diplomat who has been held captive in Iran's notorious Evin prison for more than 600 days, has said her brother is being used as a "pawn" in a "political game."
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00:00
The Swedish diplomat, Johan Floderus, has been in an Iranian prison for more than 650
00:06
days.
00:07
Floderus, who works for the EU`s diplomatic service and lives in Brussels, was detained
00:13
in Tehran`s airport after a touristic visit to the country.
00:16
The EU believes he is illegally detained and is a victim of growing arbitrary detentions
00:22
affecting EU citizens, also known as hostage diplomacy.
00:26
His family tried to raise awareness in an event in Brussels.
00:31
I can see from the pictures now from his trial that he looks very different from the brother
00:35
I know.
00:36
I see there is like not really this light in his eyes.
00:39
He looks much skinnier, very pale, of course, since he`s basically never going out.
00:44
And I know that he doesn`t get as much food as he needs, for example.
00:48
And not to mention the pain it must be like inside to stand there.
00:53
And like now he is accused for something where they want maybe to give him the death penalty.
01:00
So I mean -- and also the fact that he`s alone there.
01:03
We don`t even have a Swedish ambassador at the moment in Iran, so...
01:09
Floderus has spent 300 days in isolation and is kept hostage in a 24-hour light cell.
01:14
For the first 10 months, he could not contact his family.
01:17
After several hunger strikes, he has now very limited phone calls.
01:21
And in these almost two years, he only had two video calls.
01:24
He is forced to do them in English.
01:28
As you can hear, my English is not fluent because I`m a Swedish native speaker.
01:31
But we have to speak in English during those calls.
01:34
And otherwise they -- yeah, that`s a demand from the other side.
01:38
And also we know that he`s being supervised and they will break off the phone call if
01:42
something is said that they don`t want to.
01:44
So it`s hard for us to know what is really coming from my brother and what is maybe -- what
01:48
is maybe -- I wouldn`t say forced, but yeah, I don`t know.
01:53
Iran accused Floderus of what they call corruption on earth and believe he has spied for Israel.
01:58
The maximum sentence is death penalty.
02:02
He is an innocent man.
02:03
That is also the fact I want to really say that.
02:06
I don`t think that anyone really feels like my brother has done those crimes that he is
02:11
accused to.
02:13
So this is about some big political game where my brother is being used as a pawn.
02:18
And that is really for me something I cannot accept.
02:21
And I don`t think we as a nation or the European Union either should accept that.
02:27
His trial started in December and finished last Sunday.
02:30
There is no date for the verdict.
02:32
Thank you.
02:33
(APPLAUSE)
02:34
(END)
02:34
1
02:39
(whooshing)
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