A UN inquiry into human rights in Iran has been asked to intervene in the growing detention of Iranian dual nationals and to identify the practice as unlawful state hostage-taking. The inquiry, set up last November by the UN human rights council and being overseen by three lawyers, is due to report in March 2024. A submission from the Free Nazanin campaign, which worked for the release of the British-Iranian dual national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, warns the UN body that Iran is normalising the capture of dual nationals for use as diplomatic bargaining chips. The submission says it has become an integral part of Iran’s abuse of human rights in the country. Iran has largely claimed the detainees are spies. Richard Ratcliffe, Nazanin’s husband, said: “We still look at these cases as individual stories, and individual transactions, and argue about which political leader would have handled it best. We are not yet looking at it as a transnational system of organised crime. It is a business that costs far too little at present, and is unravelling many other human rights.” He stressed he was delighted that five Americans had been released by Iran this week as part of a complex wider deal. But he said: “It is really hard for those the US government left behind and still in harm’s way. It will be essential while the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, is still in New York that the US government gets assurances from him that those left behind are kept safe, if it hasn’t already got them, and that there are no more executions of foreign nationals for leverage.” He added: “The bigger picture is that the world needs to take its head out of the sand. For too long, western governments have been reluctant to acknowledge Iran’s hostage diplomacy, and talk instead of consular cases. Iran’s hostage enterprise has expanded and morphed into something more dangerous because it has been allowed to.” The exact number of dual nationals held in Iranian jails, mainly on spying charges, is unknown but the campaign estimates it is more than 30. In the submission, the campaign says: “Iran’s hostage-taking has escalated in 2022, particularly after the nationwide protests that erupted in September 2022, leading to a significant increase in human rights violations committed against foreign and dual nationals, both in terms of scale and severity. This escalation has involved an alarming increase in executions of dual nationals for leverage over foreign states.” Calling for a more coherent international response, it says: “Secret negotiations and prisoner swaps risk paving the way for a policy of appeasement that emboldens Iran to continue to commit hostage-taking and other crimes in exchange for political leverage. They also serve to distract attention from the significant human rights violations committed by the Iranian regime and portray Iran’s hostage-taking as an isolated bilateral issue, rather than an institutionalised practice of blackmailing that threatens international peace and security.” It says Iran is setting a “terrifying precedent” that could be replicated around the world by threatening to execute prisoners in return for concessions. It claims: “Iran is therefore gradually adopting an execution diplomacy, whereby the Iranian regime is executing or credibly threatening to execute dual nationals as a warning sign to intimidate dissidents and pressure western governments into succumbing to its demands. This deeply alarming type of diplomacy is seemingly being spearheaded by Iran.” The group claims there is evidence that in attempts to abduct individuals from Europe, the Iranian intelligence services have begun developing closer relationships with organised criminal gangs in the UK and across Europe to expand the capability of its networks. Accusing Iran of being involved in state-sponsored brutality unprecedented in modern statecraft, the report goes on to identify some Iranian officials that it regards as integral to the process. There has always been an ambiguity in nation states and hostage families about the incentive effect of striking deals. Many governments abhor these deals in public but then quietly strike an agreement in order to secure a citizen’s release. Siamak Namazi, one of the five Americans released as part of the recently announced US-Iran prisoner exchange, said: “It is only if the free world finally agrees to collectively impose draconian consequences on those who use human lives as mere bargaining chips that the Iranian regime and its ilk will be compelled to make difference choices.” On the day of the hostages’ release, the US censured Iran’s intelligence and security ministry for its involvement in the wrongful detention of US citizens, and the former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his support of the ministry. The US defended the deal for the five on the basis that the $6bn released to Iran was Iranian money, and use of the cash in Iranian banks in Qatar would be monitored to ensure it was spent only for humanitarian purposes.