Updated March 25, 2026 — CBS News
Siamak Namazi, who spent nearly eight years imprisoned in Iran, says he is deeply worried about Americans believed to be held in Iranian jails as tensions between the U.S. and Iran rise. Speaking on Face the Nation, Namazi called detainees “the easiest-to-grab punching bag” for Tehran and warned that being forgotten is a hostage’s worst fear during a period of escalating conflict.
Emad Shargi, who served five years in Evin Prison, joined Namazi on the program and described how the facility amplifies unrest. Recounting conditions during the October 2022 protests after the death of Mahsa Amini, Shargi said turmoil outside often becomes a far larger crisis inside Evin, noting there was even a fire and a surge of protest-related prisoners.
Namazi and Shargi were two of five U.S. citizens released in 2023 after a complex diplomatic arrangement that involved transferring $6 billion in previously frozen Iranian oil assets and freeing five Iranians who faced U.S. charges. At the time, the Biden administration stressed that the swap did not change the broader adversarial relationship with Iran. The State Department determined Namazi had been wrongfully detained.
Both men said they believe knowledge of Americans held in Evin would prompt attention from U.S. leaders during a war. Shargi said a future administration should be aware that innocent Americans can be used as political pawns; Namazi urged that any diplomatic efforts to end hostilities should explicitly include plans to secure the release of detainees.
U.S. officials believe at least four Americans are currently detained in Iran. Two — Reza Valizadeh and Kamran Hekmati — have been formally designated by the U.S. government as wrongfully detained and are thought to be held in Evin.
Namazi and Shargi appeared on the panel with Shargi’s sister, Neda Sharghi; former U.S. hostage negotiator Roger Carstens; and moderator Margaret Brennan, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned of a potentially large strike package on Iran.
Sharghi urged U.S. policymakers to decouple individual detainee cases from larger geopolitical disputes and to pursue creative, case-specific solutions like those that secured Emad and Siamak’s releases. Carstens, who served as the U.S. special envoy for hostage affairs under both the Trump and Biden administrations, said he did not know whether current talks led by special envoy Steve Witkoff and presidential adviser Jared Kushner have raised the cases of the Americans believed to be detained.
Carstens noted that Tehran frequently links detainee cases to negotiations over its nuclear program, but he said U.S. negotiators historically sought flexibility: keeping discussions related but not so tightly bound that progress on one issue would be blocked if the other stalled.
Namazi stressed that wars typically end through diplomacy and urged that any such process include concrete efforts to bring detained Americans home.
Editor’s note: This article was updated to correct two quotes by Emad Shargi and Siamak Namazi that were previously misattributed.