The universities in Flanders call on the Iranian authorities not to carry out the execution of Iranian-Swedish professor Ahmadreza Djalali who has been sentenced to death for alleged espionage. Djalali is a guest teacher at VUB, Brussels, in the field of disaster medicine. Djalali, 45, is married with two children and works at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden on improving hospitals’ emergency responses to different threats.
Academic institutions are calling on researchers, diplomats, politicians and citizens to protest against his conviction, the Flemish Interuniversity Council (Vlaamse Interuniversitaire Raad) said on Tuesday.
As previously reported, an appeal should have been filed by his lawyer but it appears that it never reached the Iranian Supreme Court.
“They don’t have any evidence. My husband is innocent. We need more help from the Swedish government, EU and the academic world, from all who can help us,” says his wife.
The universities will participate alongside Amnesty International in a protest that will take place Thursday at 18:00 in front of the Iranian embassy in Brussels.
The Brussels Times
