Dozens of people lined Horton plaza Saturday to protest Iran's sentencing of several dual-nationals, and to demand their immediate release.
Robin Shahini, 46, a graduate student who’s lived in San Diego for the last 16 years, is now a prisoner in Iran – sentenced to 18 years.
“We want to send a message to the [Obama] administration to not forget about the human rights situation in Iran as they are dealing with the Iranian government,” Iranian human rights lawyer Bahram Maher told NBC 7. “We need to have same kind of pressure on the Iranian government that brought them to the table for the nuclear deal.”
Bahram says the U.S. government is so involved with the nuclear issue they forget about human rights.
Shahini is just one of many faces – now prisoners – plastered on posters.
Shahini left Iran in 1998 and graduated from San Diego State in May with a degree in International security and conflict resolution, but during a recent trip back home in July he was arrested then sentenced last week to 18 years in prison for ‘collaboration with a hostile government.’
He is the most recent dual-national to be convicted in a secret trial since Iran's nuclear deal.
Local
AP reports Shahini plans to protest his sentence with a hunger strike.
“We want whoever is president to listen to the people of Iran and stop appeasement policy with the regime of Iran,” protester Pooran Arbabi said.
Some experts and family members have suggested the Iranian government will use people like Shahini as bargaining chips in future negotiations similar to the prisoner exchange in January that freed Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian and three other Iranian-Americans. The U.S. made a $400 million cash delivery to Iran the same day, part of a settlement of a decades old arbitration claim that seemed to some like ransom.
