KI president: Strengthen the activities for Ahmadreza Djalali
In a debate article, President of Karolinska Institutet Annika Östman Wernerson and other leading representatives of the board of the Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions call for continued and strengthened activities for the researcher, doctor, KI alumnus and Swedish citizen Ahmadreza Djalali. Since 2016, Djalali has been imprisoned on fabricated charges in Iran, in the prison that the Prime Minister recently described as hell on earth.
The debate article is signed by KI president Annika Östman Wernerson, Hans Adolfsson, vice-chancellor of Umeå University, and by Erik Renström, vice-chancellor of Lund University as representatives of the Board of the Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions (SUHF).
The article emphasizes that it is very gratifying that two Swedes who have been imprisoned in Iran without legal grounds are now free and back in Sweden. But that it is disappointing and sad that the researcher, doctor and KI alumnus Ahmadreza Djalali, was not included in the same prisoner exchange.
Ahmadreza Djalali was arrested in the spring of 2016 and sentenced to death a year later after a trial characterized by fabricated evidence and without the possibility of due process.
A legal and international scandal
His arrest and subsequent trial are described in the article as a legal and international scandal. He has been living under threat of execution since the death sentence was pronounced in 2017.
The Prime Minister described that the two released Swedes had experienced "hell on earth" during their time in Iranian captivity. Ahmadreza Djalali has been in this hell for much longer.
Sweden must not abandon him. He too must be allowed to come home to his family in Sweden, the three university principals write.