Iran frees 3 Europeans in prisoner swap as detained American's lawyer denies rumors of imminent release

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

52% : A gaunt-looking Belgian aid worker, Olivier Vandecasteele, returned to Brussels from Iran last week as the first person freed under the swap agreement.
51% : Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said he was "very relieved" that Kamran Ghaderi and Massud Mossaheb were being brought back to their home country after "years of arduous detention in Iran."
50% : Berlin -- Two Austrian citizens and a Danish national who were held in Iran were being released and allowed to return home, officials in Austria and Belgium said Friday.
46% : A National Security Council spokesperson told CBS News in a statement when he began his strike that the U.S. government remained "committed to securing the freedom of Siamak Namazi, and we are working tirelessly to bring him home along with all U.S. citizens who are wrongfully detained in Iran, including Emad Shargi and Morad Tahbaz.""Iran's wrongful detention of U.S. citizens for use as political leverage is outrageous," the statement from the NSC spokesperson said at the time.
44% : The Reuters news agency cited a Belgian government statement as saying a Danish person arrested in Iran in November 2022 in connection with women's rights demonstrations was the third individual being released Friday as part of a prisoner swap.
42% : U.S. permanent resident Shahab Dalili is also being detained in Iran.
40% : Iran, facing Western sanctions over its rapidly advancing nuclear program, has faced protests in recent months and economic strain.
33% :Iran has detained a number of foreigners and dual nationals over the years, accusing them of espionage or other state security offenses and sentencing them following secretive trials in which rights groups say they're denied due process.
33% : International human rights lawyer Jared Genser said in a Tweet that "rumors circulating in Iran" that Namazi "informed his family he'll be freed from Evin Prison w/in days are completely unfounded.
33% :Namazi, whose elderly father was also held by Iran until he was released on medical grounds late last year, went on a week-long hunger strike in January in a bid to pressure President Biden to "recognize just how desperate the situation of the U.S. hostages" in Iran had become.
32% : Critics have repeatedly accused Iran of using such prisoners as bargaining chips with the West.
32% : At least three U.S. nationals and one permanent U.S. resident are among those "wrongfully detained" in Iran on charges dismissed by both their families and American officials as baseless.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.