Foreign Nationals on Death Row Foreign nationals are at a signi cant disadvantage in the application of the death penalty in Iran. At times, they seem also to be discriminated against. Afghans are the most represented foreign group sentenced to death. This is due in part to the large refugee and migrant Afghan population in Iran and also the route of the drug trade through these countries. Pakistan, the second highest cohort of foreign nationals, is also a major drug-producing country. They also share an ethnic minority group, the Baluch, who are often targeted by Iran for being involved in ‘antiIranian’ activity. All of the other foreign national cases found were also ethnically Kurdish. Hence, we can see that both foreign nationality, but also, perhaps more crucially in Iran, ethnicity and religion play a large part in determining who is most at risk of the death penalty in the country. Dual Nationals Dual Iranian nationals, while representing only a fraction of the overall death row population in Iran, play a pivotal role in Iran’s political landscape. As of January 2022, the Centre for Human Rights in Iran notes the imprisonment of 16 dual Iranian nationals in Iran. The majority face spurious charges of espionage, foreign collusion or security offences. The Islamic Republic of Iran does not recognise dual nationality of Iranians and so categorically denies consular assistance to anyone with dual citizenship. Despite this ‘hostage taking’ being repeatedly denounced by foreign powers, Iran continues to use it as a powerful tool to seek to combat Western sanctions, arrange prisoner swaps and obtain leverage in nuclear negotiations. Foreign nationals on death row in Iran are likely to be unfamiliar with their legal rights and isolated from protective networks. For example, they are much less likely to be able to pay diya, blood money to the family of the deceased in order to avoid execution. They also face language and cultural barriers. This can be compounded by the regime’s prosecutorial preference for forced signed confessions, which are often in a language the defendant can’t read or write. Ahmadreza Djalali Ahmadreza Djalali, a 51-year-old Swedish-Iranian expert in disaster medicine, travelled to Iran to attend a conference. While there, he was arrested on 24 April 2016 and sentenced to death by Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court on 21 October 2017 on spurious espionage charges based on a false ‘confession’ extracted under torture. The sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court on 5 December 2017 and he continues to be held in Evin Prison. He was denied access to lawyers for months and denied access to consular assistance as Iran does not recognise his dual Swedish nationality. Despite UN intervention he has still not been released. He has been held in prolonged solitary con nement for over 100 days and tortured. He also suffers from medical issues which fi fi require treatment which has been denied.