TEHRAN- Kazem Gharibabadi, the deputy chief of the Iranian Judiciary and secretary of High Council for Human Rights, stated on Friday that 30 Iranian citizens are being locked up in foreign jails on allegations of circumventing Washington's anti-Iran sanctions.

The Judiciary official noted that the Judiciary, Foreign Ministry, and Iranian diplomatic missions are following up their cases.

“Due to the dual approach of the West on the issue of human rights, the number of Iranians who need human rights protections abroad is not small,” Gharibabadi said.

“There are many examples in this regard, like the sham trial of Hamid Nouri in Sweden, the violent mistreatment toward a female Iranian asylum seeker by Danish police in front of her child, and even Iranians being prosecuted under the pretext of circumventing U.S. sanctions against Iran,” he pointed out. 

He stated that the Iranian captives will surely require the assistance of Iran's High Council for Human Rights.

“We follow up on the problems of our compatriots abroad in several ways, mostly through Iranian embassies and by contacting relevant officials, as was the case in Denmark and the mistreatment of an Iranian asylum seeker by Danish police. I corresponded with the Danish minister of immigration in this regard. Of course, there are other mechanisms,” Gharibabadi stated.

The human rights chief went on to say that “our consular section at the Foreign Ministry is following up on the problems. I would also like to emphasize that in some cases the follow-up is lengthy and does not mean that we are abandoning them. We give various forms of human rights support as well as legal, judicial, political and consular pursuit to those who are in trouble.”

Iran has been subjected to harsh unilateral U.S. sanctions that have been imposed by Washington when Donald Trump announced an abrupt withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in May 2018.

Trump subsequently launched a “maximum pressure” campaign on the Iranian economy, despite Iran's complete compliance with its nuclear commitments under the JCPOA.

Under the Joe Biden administration, negotiations began in Vienna last April between Iran and the remaining JCPOA parties to bring the U.S. back into compliance with the agreement.

However, since the start of the negotiations, Washington has put a number of sanctions on Iran, which Tehran sees as a sign of poor faith.