First disbelief, then the feeling of injustice and helplessness. “We don’t know how long this will last, we don’t know what the Iranians are waiting for and we will probably never know”: Sylvie Arnaud is the mother of Louis, one of the four French people imprisoned in Iran.
Like Louis, arrested on September 28, 2022, several dozen Westerners are detained in China, Iran, Russia or Venezuela, most often accused of espionage or conspiracy against the state but who proclaim their innocence.
Their countries denounce “arbitrary” detentions used as bargaining chips. France even speaks of “state hostages”.
“At the beginning, I didn’t want to think that it was political. And time has passed,” confides Sylvie Arnaud. “Without anything happening.”
Getting these prisoners released has become a diplomatic headache, which can take years at the cost of significant concessions.
The United States has just authorized the transfer of six billion dollars in Iranian funds frozen in South Korea and the release of five Iranians to facilitate the release of five Americans who were detained in Evin prison.
At the end of May, Belgian humanitarian Olivier Vandecasteele was released after 15 months of detention in Iran, in exchange for an Iranian diplomat, Assadollah Assadi, sentenced in Belgium in 2021 to 20 years in prison for “attempted terrorist assassinations”.
In October 2022, seven American prisoners held in Venezuela were released in exchange for two relatives of President Maduro.
All these concessions attract criticism.
“The dilemma of governments is quite classic,” explains Etienne Dignat, professor at Sciences Po and author of a book on hostages. “By unfreezing assets and exchanging prisoners, they are in a way rewarding a crime and encouraging states to continue their hostage diplomacy.”
The criticism is “all the more well-founded”, he says, as Moscow, Tehran or Beijing target individuals based on their nationality “unlike armed groups who often do not know in advance the identity of the person they are targeting.” ‘they capture’.
The number of publicly known cases of “state hostages” has increased “in recent years”, underlines Daren Nair, security consultant and activist for the release of hostages.
Citing the example of the United States, he notes that “the majority of Americans detained abroad ten years ago were by non-state actors in countries like Syria, Yemen and Somalia.”
Today, the majority of them are in the hands of Iran, Venezuela, Russia and China.
American basketball player Brittney Griner remained in detention for several months in Russia for possession of an electronic cigarette containing cannabis liquid. She was released at the end of 2022, only in exchange for the famous Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, imprisoned in the United States.
The American journalist from the Wall Street Journal, Evan Gershkovich, has been imprisoned in Moscow since March, while ex-Marine Paul Whelan has been serving a 16-year prison sentence since 2020.
The reality is that “usually the only way to bring a hostage home is to negotiate,” observes Joel Simon, founder of the Journalism Protection Initiative.
Without dialogue “with the hostage-takers? whether state or non-state? the hostage will likely be killed or languish in detention or prison for an extended period of time,” he says.
The task of governments is all the more complex in the case of “state hostages” as “the process is more pernicious” than for hostages of terrorist groups, continues Etienne Dignat.
The Russians, the Iranians and the Chinese adopt “a legal register”, “set up a mock trial”, “lock them up in real prisons”. The consideration is negotiated behind the scenes.
“This is an essential point, because this ambiguity always benefits states carrying out arrests,” he explains, especially when it comes to journalists or researchers gathering information or working in the security field. .
“This obviously does not make them spies but it is a sufficient reason to act in the eyes of authoritarian regimes,” he says.
Blandine Brière never doubted the innocence of her brother, one of the two French people released last May.
“We are ordinary people,” she confides to AFP. She discovered the expression “state hostage” after Benjamin’s arrest in May 2020.
Making these detentions public also complicates the task of negotiators.
Families are “constantly walking on eggshells”, aware that their displayed support can compromise or accelerate the release of a loved one, explains Blandine Brière. They most often comply with government recommendations but wonder about the real “issues”.
For Daren Nair, we can only discourage hostage diplomacy if we sanction “the individuals at the top”.
In countries that use this practice, “power is concentrated at the top, so imposing sanctions on a judge or an intermediate-level official will not have a sufficiently significant impact,” he says.
16/09/2023 07:32:44 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
