The family of an Iranian-American stuck in Iran took opposition to the Biden administration's ignoring their case in favor of basketball player Brittney Griner.
Emad Shargi has been detained in Iran since 2018 — convicted of espionage without trial and sentenced to 10 years in prison — and the Biden administration has not responded to the family's request for a meeting to discuss bringing Shargi home.
"We have still not heard from the president," daughter Hannah Shargi told CBS News' "Face the Nation." "We have not received a meeting with him.
"We've been asking as a family along with the other hostage families to meet with him for quite some time, and I just don't understand why he isn't meeting with us. I think it would make a big difference to sit down with him. I want to tell him about my dad, I want to tell him how scared we are, how pressing this matter is and how time sensitive it really is."
Wife Bahareh Shargi told host Margaret Brennan her husband is innocent of spying and "not well" in prison.
"I was ecstatic for Brittney and her family," Bahareh Shargi told Brennan. "Brittney should have never been detained, she's an American citizen that was in Russia for no good reason at all. And I was very, very happy that she's back home. And it also gives me hope because it means that this can be done for others, such as my husband and other Americans who are held in Iran."
While the State Department says it is "working on" cases of "every unjustly detained American," Shargi's family says the White House is not similarly responsive to requests to review their case.
"Frankly, I don't think there is a good reason not to meet with us," daughter Ariana Shargi told CBS. "I mean, we're Americans first and foremost, before even just being a hostage family. But also, if Biden and his administration could have the courage and the fortitude to get Brittney out of Russia, while Russia is in a war with Ukraine, then I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be able to get my dad out of Iran."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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