Demonstration for Belgian Held in Iran Calls for His Release

Supporters of a Belgian support employee being held in Iran staged a Christmas Day protest in Brussels to demand his quick launch, with a spokesman questioning why a prisoner swap treaty was stalled.

Round 50 individuals took half within the demonstration beneath fixed rain within the heart of the Belgian capital, brandishing footage of the help employee, Olivier Vandecasteele.

A spokesperson for the marketing campaign to free Vandecasteele, Olivier Van Steirtegem, stated the gathering came about as a result of “it is the primary 12 months that Olivier is marking Christmas as a hostage in Iran.”

He stated the scenario was “unthinkable for his household,” who didn’t even know the place Vandecasteele was being detained.

Vandecasteele, 41, was seized in February and has since been held in situations that Belgium’s authorities has described as “inhumane.

Final week, Iran imposed a 28-year jail time period on him, stirring an already bitter debate over a stymied prisoner change treaty.

The Belgian authorities subsequently urged all Belgians in Iran, together with twin nationals, to go away the nation over the chance that they may very well be arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned.

Belgium insists Vandecasteele is harmless and was being held as a hostage as Tehran makes an attempt to drive Brussels to launch an Iranian agent convicted of terrorism.

Below a treaty Belgium and Iran signed earlier this 12 months, Vandecasteele would have been eligible to be swapped for the Iranian Assadollah Assadi.

Assadi, an Iranian diplomat who was stationed in Austria, was arrested in 2018 after German, French and Belgian regulation enforcement foiled a plot to set off a bomb at a rally outdoors Paris by an Iranian exiled opposition group.

After three years in detention, he was sentenced final 12 months in Belgium to twenty years in jail for terrorism.

However in early December, Belgium’s constitutional court docket suspended the implementation of the prisoner swap treaty pending a last ruling on its legality throughout the subsequent three months.
Van Steirtegem stated, the Belgian authorities believed the stalled treaty was “the one path” to getting Vandecasteele freed.

“The query is whether or not we are able to settle for leaving a Belgian man to probably die in Iranian jail. All that as a result of we do not need to switch a prisoner from right here who has already served 5 years in jail.”