Media: Over years, Iran has been detaining Western tourists on charges of espionage

After Tehran exchanged Western hostages with its convicted diplomat, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian claims Iran is ‘completely safe’ for tourists, SİA informs referring to Iran International.

He wrote on Twitter that “if some European citizens are not exploited by foreign security services, there is no reason to arrest them.”

Over the years Iran has detained and accused dozens of Western visitors of espionage, while using them effectively as hostages to squeeze concessions from the West. Detainees do not receive fair legal protection and face sham trials.

On June 2, two Iranian-Austrian citizens named Kamran Qaderi and Masoud Mosaheb and a Danish individual imprisoned in Iran were released in the framework of a recent prisoner exchange agreement with Belgium mediated by Oman.

A week ago, Olivier Vandecasteele, a Belgian aid worker, returned to his country in exchange for the release of Assadollah Asadi, an Iranian agent disguised as a diplomat in Europe who was convicted of a terror plot in France in 2018.

In another development, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan in a statement on Saturday asked its citizens not to travel to Iran. Baku also asked its citizens who are now in Iran to observe security measures more than before.

A recent illustrative example is the story of Farid Safarli, an Azerbaijani citizen arrested in Iran. Safarli disappeared in Iran several months ago, and attempts to find out his fate were unsuccessful. Only after numerous appeals, the Iranian side reported that he had been arrested, and a criminal case had been initiated against him.

Taking into account this and numerous other examples, when Azerbaijanis found themselves in a difficult situation in a neighboring country, disappeared, and then were arrested on various trumped-up charges, becoming the object of recruitment, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry called on citizens not to travel to Iran unless absolutely necessary.

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