2 weeks ago
29
In her first reaction to her father’s sudden execution in Iran this week, Gazelle Sharmahd was mute but spoke volumes with her silence.
Staring into a camera for a post on X, she pinned a mythological symbol evoking Iran's ancient glory onto her shirt and tied back her flowing hair - a symbol of female freedom in the crosshairs of hijab laws back home.
Speaking to Iran International, Gazelle described herself as being in flight or fight mode and not yet fully grasping the loss of her father, Jamshid Sharmahd.
“I'm not feeling anything. I'm just in shock,” she said.
She is haunted by questions and demands proof of her father’s death.
“How did they execute him? Was he poisoned? Did he die under torture?”
Gazelle said her father was an activist and journalist who opposed the Islamic Republic and fought them using his expertise as a software engineer to create a website where Iranians inside the country could report human rights abuses.
He created VPNs and helped secure IP addresses so they wouldn’t get tracked by the government, Gazelle said.
Gazelle Sharmahd, along with her father Jamshid and mother. Authorities accused him of terrorism for allegedly orchestrating a series of deadly bomb attacks inside Iran. He had been living in the United States for the past two decades and was a US green card holder.
Gazelle and leading human rights experts have denied the charges, saying confessions at his trial were made under duress and that his activism and criticism of the Islamic Republic made him a target.
A United Nations human rights expert in 2022 described Jamshid’s detention as arbitrary, and Amnesty International referred to his trial as a sham.
Gazelle Sharmahd and her father Jamshid. Jamshid Sharmahd's case may
In 2020, journalist Ruhollah Zam, a French citizen, was executed in Iran after being lured from Paris to Iraq under the guise of working on a story.
In February 2024, US authorities charged an Iranian national allegedly operating on behalf of the Iran to kill dissidents abroad, and two Canadian men with ties to the Hells Angels biker gang were arrested in an alleged plot to carry out assassinations in Maryland.
Prominent human rights activist Masih Alinejad was one of them.
An outspoken critic of the Islamic Republic, she is no stranger to Iran’s far reach beyond its borders.
In 2021, the FBI thwarted an alleged kidnapping plot against Alinejad — and the following year, an alleged assassination attempt. The FBI said both plots were linked to Iran.
Criminal gangs operating on the behest of the Islamic Republic of Iran are behind a string of terror attacks on Israeli embassies in Europe since October 7, according to Israeli and Swedish Intelligence agencies.
Jamshid was sentenced to death in 2022 for “corruption on Earth,” sparking widespread condemnation from human rights groups and Western governments.
The 69-year-old suffered from Parkinson’s disease and grew up in Germany and spent most of his adult life raising his family in the United States. While on a layover in Dubai in 2020, he was kidnapped from his hotel by Iranian agents.
“He was not taken from Iran while visiting. He was not taken from a ship passing by the Persian Gulf. He was taken from Dubai. From Dubai, he was taken to Oman and from Oman across the waters. We have a full protection of the Persian Gulf. Our forces and our intelligence are there. These are friendly and ally countries. How can that actually happen?” asked Phares.
“The motives of the regime could be anything. They are known for their criminal terror structure of thinking,” he added.
Gazelle said she saw the entire kidnapping unfold from her father’s google tracker.
Gazelle Sharmahd and her father Jamshid. “We could see how his taken from his hotel room to the border to Oman to the coast of Oman. And then the tracker breaks off,” she said.
The German government announced Thursday that it would close three Islamic Republic consulates in response to the execution of the dual citizen. Germany’s foreign minister called it an assassination.
In an email to Iran International, a US State Department spokesperson said the US stands with Germany in condemnation and supports their move in shutting down the three consulates.
“Sharmahd’s execution was an abhorrent act by the Iranian regime and underscores that the record pace of unjust executions in Iran continues unabated, despite Iran’s attempts to promote a gentler face to the international community.”
Gazelle said she doesn’t need kind words and condolences and feels abandoned by both governments.
She questions why the Biden administration did not include her father in a 2023 prisoner swap that freed 5 American citizens. Now, it's too late, she lamented.
As she tries to process her loss, she said she will continue to call for justice and keep up what she described as her father’s legacy.
“He never will give up and we will never give up. You cannot break a freedom fighter.”
