State Department calls on Iran to release US detainees

Vedant Patel, Principal Deputy Spokesman for the Department of State, said at a press briefing Friday that the agency is “working relentlessly” to secure the release of three wrongfully detained U.S. citizens in Iran. “We once again call on Iran to cease its abhorrent practice of unjustly imprisoning foreign nationals for use as political leverage and to immediately release US citizens Emad Shargi, Morad Tahbaz and Siamak Namazi,” said Patel. Shargi and Tahbaz have been detained since 2018, and Namazi since 2015.