Mathieu Johansson, a student at Ecole Moser in Geneva, presented the empty chair for Ahmadreza Djalali at the 17th Annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy on February 18th, 2025.
Full Remarks:
The empty chair on this stage is dedicated to Dr. Ahmadreza Djalali, an innocent man facing execution in Iran.
Every night, his wife Vida Mehrania fears going to bed, worried that she might wake up to the news that her husband has been hanged.
In April 2016, Djalali, an Iranian–Swedish physician in disaster medicine, left his home in Sweden for a two-week workshop in Iran, at the invitation of the University of Tehran.
Yet a few days after his arrival, he was arrested under false charges of being a spy. The following year, after a sham trial, the country’s revolutionary court sentenced Djalali to death. His so-called confession was extracted under torture.
Since his arrest, Dr. Djalali has endured horrific conditions. He has spent months in prolonged solitary confinement, isolated from the world, with bright lights shining in his cell 24 hours a day, to deprive him of sleep. Medical issues prevent him from eating properly, and his health is severely deteriorating. Reports indicate that he now struggles to speak.
For years, the international community has demanded his release. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared his imprisonment unlawful. Human rights organizations have repeatedly condemned his inhumane treatment. Yet the Iranian regime has ignored these calls, continuing their cruel persecution of an innocent man.
Dr. Djalali’s case is not an isolated case in Iran. It is part of a systematic pattern of injustice and repression, where visitors with foreign nationality are captured and used for hostage diplomacy, and where academics, journalists, and human rights defenders are silenced, through imprisonment and torture.
Today, we say to Dr. Ahmadreza Djalali: You are not forgotten. We stand with you, and we will not be silent until you are free.
