Johan Floderus

Since its creation in 1979, the Government of Iran has repeatedly arrested and detained foreign people, either from European countries or the United States, to get various types of concessions from their respective institutions.[9] The first significant instance of this series of incidents was the Iran hostage crisis, which saw fifty-two between American diplomats and citizens being held hostage in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran for 444 days, from 4 November 1979, to their release on 20 January 1981.[10][11]

Tensions between Iran and Western countries started rising again since 2018, following the Trump administration's decision to announce the United States withdrawal from the JCPOA, an agreement that had been originally reached in 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 (together with the European Union) to limit the Iranian nuclear program, with the country receiving relief from international nuclear-related sanctions in return for their commitments to the deal.[9][12] Following the election of Joe Biden as President of the United States, negotiations between American and Iranian representatives about a new deal took place, but they all proved to be unsuccessful as of 2023.[9][13] Moreover, the election of conservative leader Ebrahim Raisi as President of Iran (succeeding to moderate Hassan Rouhani) in the summer of 2021 has been cited as another factor that fueled reciprocal mistrust between his administration and Western institutions.[9]

Between 2022 and 2023, several foreign citizens, some of whom were dual Iranian nationals, were arrested and imprisoned by Iranian authorities on reportedly spurious charges,[3][9] often involving espionage allegations;[9][14] this series of arrests followed a similar trend from the previous years, mainly targeting Iranians with dual nationality or foreign permanent residency who had returned to the country due to business or personal reasons.[9][15] According to some analysts, who described the aforementioned detentions as "hostage diplomacy",[3][7][14] the Iranian regime could seek to trade imprisoned foreign citizens for Iranians held in European countries or the United States, or to use them as leverage in exchange for economic compensations and other types of concessions.[3][9][14] An example in support of this thesis is the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an Iranian-British dual citizen who was detained in Iran since 2016, and then got released in March 2022, in exchange for the UK's settling of a longstanding debt with Iran.[9][16] Moreover, in August 2023, roughly one month before the first reports on the detention of Floderus surfaced, the United States had agreed to repay $6 billion in withheld Iranian oil revenues and release several Iranian prisoners in America, to free five American citizens held in Iranian prisons.[3][14]

In the years prior to the arrest of Floderus, relations between Iran and Sweden progressively deteriorated due to disputes and diplomatic incidents involving their respective citizens.[3][17][18]

In April 2016, Ahmad Reza Djalali, an Iranian-Swedish doctor and researcher in disaster medicine, was arrested and charged with spying on Iranian's nuclear program for Israel, accusations he denied,[19][20] before being taken to the Evin Prison, where he reportedly faced repeated tortures and threats.[19] In October 2017, Djalali was convicted of "spreading corruption on earth" and sentenced to death:[19][20] multiple reports about the time of his execution have surfaced ever since.[3][9]

In November 2019, Swedish police arrested Hamid Nouri,[21] a former senior Iranian judicial official,[3] at the Arlanda Airport in Stockholm;[21][22] he was accused of committing severe war crimes and more than 100 murders during the Iran-Iraq War, as well as the 1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners,[6][22] in which future President of Iran Raisi had also been involved directly.[22][23] The trial of Nouri took place under the principle of universal jurisdiction,[3][22] and he was eventually found guilty of the aforementioned war crimes in July 2022, being sentenced to life in prison as a result;[3][4][5] he decided to appeal the verdict.[3][24] In the months prior to the final decision, Iranian authorities had reportedly tried to put pressure on the Swedish government to get a more favorable treatment for Nouri;[4][25] moreover, as indicated by various Swedish and international media, the arrests of Swedish citizens in Iran[6][25] and the threats to execute Ahmad Reza Djalali were seen as acts of retaliation for the Iranian official's trial.[18][23]

Habib Chaab, an Iranian political activist who had founded and led the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz,[17][26] before going on exile to Sweden in 2006,[27] was kidnapped in Turkey in October 2020 and smuggled to Iran;[26][27] there, he was accused of masterminding the 2018 Ahvaz military parade attack, which left 25 people killed.[17][28] He was sentenced to death and executed in May 2023,[3][17][28] having been found guilty of the mofsed-e-filarz capital crime.[9] Sweden's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Tobias Billstrom, together with EU, publicly condemned Chaab's execution.[17]

Born in Sweden,[3][4] Floderus completed his undergraduate studies in England and Sweden, before relocating to Brussels, Belgium in 2015,[29] in order to take part in the European Union's civil service training program:[3] he first served as a trainee at the Permanent Representation of Sweden to the EU, and then started working on development aid in 2016, as part of the European Commission's Blue Book traineeship.[29] Later the same year, Floderus left Brussels to pursue a Master's degree in Development Economics at the SOAS University of London, before returning to the Belgian capital in September 2017, when he started working as an International Aid and Cooperation Officer at the European Commission's Directorate-General for International Partnerships.[29] Around the same period of time, he also collaborated with the Swedish Council for Higher Education, being featured in a Facebook advertising campaign aimed to young Swedish graduates who wanted to pursue professional careers within EU institutions.[3][4] In December 2019,[29] Floderus started working for the European Commission, serving as an aide to the then-incumbent European Commissioner for Home Affairs, fellow Swedish politician Ylva Johansson;[3][4][14] he then joined the European External Action Service, the diplomatic corps of the EU, in September 2021,[29] being subsequently assigned to their Afghanistan delegation.[3][4][14] The diplomat was originally set to travel to Kabul on official EEAS duty: however, the mission was cancelled in the aftermath of the Taliban takeover in August 2021, and he continued working from the institution's headquarters in Brussels.[3][14]

Prior to his arrest in April 2022, Floderus had already visited Iran several times, all of which without incident,[3][5] on diplomatic business for the EU,[3][4][6] having been involved in humanitarian projects.[1]

In April 2022, Floderus visited Iran once more, this time as part of private tourist trip:[3][4][5] according to Swedish media, he had traveled to the country with three fellow Swedes,[5] in order to visit another friend who worked at the Swedish Embassy in Tehran.[30] On 17 April,[3][14] as he prepared to leave the capital from Imam Khomeini International Airport, the man was arrested and reportedly taken to the Evin Prison.[3][4][5]

About a month later, Swedish authorities announced that a Swedish man "in his thirties" had been arrested in Iran, although his identity was kept undisclosed.[14][18][25] Aftonbladet noted that, around the same period, the national Ministry for Foreign Affairs had advised Swedish citizens to avoid non-essential travels to Iran, since an increasing number of cases had been registered within the country where "numerous European citizens [had] been deprived of [their] freedom without any apparent reason".[25] The following month, the Swedish government extended their advice to any kind of travels to Iran.[31]

In July 2022, the Iranian government released an official statement confirming the arrest of a Swedish national on espionage charges.[3][6][7] According to the Iranian Ministry of Information,[18][32] the apprehended person had already visited the country multiple times,[3][18] and was "under constant monitoring from [national] intelligence agencies".[18] In the same report, the Ministry accused the detainee of being in contact with other foreign and Iranian citizens who had previously been suspected of spying, as well as visiting Israel before their travel to Iran.[14][18][32]

In June 2023, Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele, who had just been released in a prisoner swap between Belgium and Iran (following 455 days in detention for alleged spying),[3][33] shared his testimony at a concert in his honor, held in Brussels.[33][34] During the public event, he reportedly referred to a Swedish man (who was later believed to be Floderus) he met as a cell-mate during their time at the Evin Prison,[3][4][5] saying quote, "We became like brothers: we promised each other that we would do everything for each other and whoever came out first would help each other’s family and loved ones".[3][5]

On 4 September 2023, an exclusive report on Floderus' diplomatic career and detention was published on The New York Times, making such information public for the first time since his arrest in April 2022.[3][4][6] All of the anonymous witnesses contacted by the American newspaper denied the espionage allegations Floderus had been charged with.[3] The diplomat's family subsequently confirmed the news through an official press statement sent to Swedish media,[3][35] thanking the people who were "working hard to free [Johan]" and hoping he could "come back home immediately".[5][30][32]

Both The New York Times and Il Post noted that Floderus's case was peculiar due to his professional background,[1][4] since international law granted extended legal protection to foreign officials and diplomats,[4] an aspect that could make such arrests at high risk of damaging relations between the states involved.[1][4]

At first, both the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the European Commission declined to reveal the identity of the Swedish citizen detained in Iran.[3][36] However, the day after the release of the original New York Times report, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, confirmed that the aforementioned person was Floderus himself: speaking from Cádiz, Spain, where he was attending a meeting on development, Borrell told reporters that European authorities were working "relentlessly" to free the Swedish man.[6][7][37]

Thomas Kjems, a Danish travel vlogger who had been arrested in October 2022 during the Mahsa Amini protests, before being freed in a prisoner swap in June 2023,[30][38] said he had spent eight months with Floderus at the Evin Prison in an interview for SVT, noting that the diplomat had seemed "in physically and mentally good shape" when he had last seen him.[6][30]

The European Commission's decision to keep the case of Floderus secret faced criticism from some European Parliament deputies,[3] including the chairwoman of the Parliament's Iran delegation, Cornelia Ernst,[3] as well as Iraqi-Swedish politician Abir Al-Sahlani.[39] Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, also questioned the handling of the case by Sweden and the EU, saying that the arrest of Floderus was "a real escalation" and that "in [their] family's experience, publicity keeps hostages safe, because it limits the abuse that gets done to them."[3]

On 10 September 2023, Floderus' 33rd birthday, the diplomat's family officially launched a public campaign, named #FreeJohanFloderus, in support of his liberation from the Evin Prison.[1][2][8]

In an official statement announcing the start of the campaign, Floderus' family revealed new details about his incarceration. According to the press release, the Swedish diplomat had been denied any kind of contact with his family during his first ten months in prison, while also receiving limited consular visits from the Swedish Embassy in Tehran.[1][8][2] The conditions under which he was incarcerated were considered to be in violation of the United Nations' Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners:[2][8] reportedly, among other aspects, he had been detained in solitary confinement for over 300 days and, more generally, held in a constantly fully-lit cell; he had been denied of "basic human rights", including minimum food and medical support; he had been permitted only three-and-a-half hours of exposure to fresh air and sunlight per week; he had been significantly restricted in receiving letters and books, or sending correspondence.[1][2] The family also stated that Floderus had finally been allowed to make phone calls to his family once a month since February 2023, and that he had chosen to go on hunger strike in order to raise their frequency, although the calls had to be held in English and had been subject to monitoring.[1][2][8] On 7 August 2023, the diplomat had been granted his first video call with his family,[1][2] where he had reportedly made "a desperate plea", asking to raise efforts to free him and allow him to return home.[2][8]