Former Iran detainee Siamak Namazi says ordinary citizens are caught between a government that oppresses them and a war that has increased their suffering.
Mr Namazi, who is Iranian American, was held in the notorious Evin Prison for nearly eight years before being released in 2023.
“Iranians are stuck in a very uncomfortable position,” he said. “They’re stuck between a regime that oppresses them, jails them, executes them – or, in the best-case scenario, takes away very basic rights.”
Mr Namazi, 54, was convicted in 2015 of collaborating with a hostile government. He went on to become the longest-serving Iranian-American dual citizen held in Iran. The US State Department determined that he was wrongfully detained.
In 2023, he was among five American citizens released in a high-profile diplomatic agreement between Iran and the administration of Joe Biden, who was president at the time. The deal included the transfer of $6 billion in frozen Iranian oil funds and the release of five Iranians facing charges in the US.
Since the US and Israel began launching strikes on Iran on February 28, repression of protesters and detainees has worsened and executions have increased, Mr Namazi said.
“I very much appreciate that Iran, and its leaders, respected my request, as President of the United States, and terminated the planned execution,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Iran’s judiciary denied the claims, saying none of the women were facing imminent execution and that several had already been released.
On Tuesday, Mr Trump reposted images of the women alongside a message from a conservative activist who said they were at risk of execution in Iran.
“To the Iranian leaders, who will soon be in negotiations with my representatives, I would greatly appreciate the release of these women,” he wrote. “I am sure that they will respect the fact that you did so. Please do them no harm. Would be a great start to our negotiations.”
Amnesty International says Iran has executed at least seven protesters and dissidents in recent weeks, with several more at imminent risk. Thousands have been detained and security forces have engaged in violent repression, leading to widespread arrests and probably secret executions.
When the US joined Israel in launching strikes in late February, Mr Trump's publicly stated goal was to topple the Tehran regime. He called on the Iranian people “to take back” their country and said help was coming, referring to the high death toll among anti-government protesters.
Since then, Mr Trump and American officials have shifted the focus of the war – and ceasefire negotiations – to reopening the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, its missile programme and its support for proxy groups across the region.
On Tuesday, Mr Trump announced that he was extending the ceasefire with Iran indefinitely, one day before it was to expire. A second round of peace talks in Pakistan has not yet been arranged.
"The President has not set a deadline himself. Ultimately, he will dictate the timetable," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. "He is satisfied with the naval blockade and he understands that Iran is in a very weak position."
Mr Namazi said many Iranians felt betrayed by promises from opposition groups abroad and from Washington that liberation was near. “The Iranian people as a whole got jiffed,” he said. “They were made promises that they were about to get liberated. What they got were aerial bombings about issues that don’t pertain to that.”
Mr Namazi described his time in prison as “interminable anguish". He believes conditions for those who remain behind bars are now likely to be worse. He said at least six Americans are believed to be held in Iranian jails.
Getting them out should have been a condition of truce talks, he added.
“Iran already had one of the highest execution rates in the world and now it’s even higher,” he said. “They’re tossing more people in prisons and they’re executing more people.”
In recent weeks, he said he was especially affected by reports of political prisoners being executed, including men he had known in prison. “I’ve actually served time with some of these gentlemen who were executed,” he said. “I don’t know how to describe the feeling of finding out that they’ve been hanged.”
Although many Iranians, particularly in the diaspora, were hopeful in the early days of the war that US and Israeli strikes would topple the regime, Mr Namazi said he never believed the conflict would deliver the democratic change many hoped for.
Instead, he said, it has strengthened hardliners and brought great destruction to the country. “What I wanted to see was a free and democratic Iran,” he added. “I saw that the war wouldn’t serve that objective. It would put more hardline figures in charge. It would destroy Iran’s infrastructure.”
But he said he had not lost faith in Iranian civil society or the possibility of a more prosperous future for the country. “I spent a lot of time in prison with very brave, courageous, creative Iranian activists,” he said. “So I haven’t written them off.”
