Daily Star.com.lb — Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese-American businessman detained in Iran last
September, is due to appear in court Monday, his organization said
Friday. Zakka, founder and Secretary General of the Union of Arab
ICT Associations (IJMA3), has been accused by Iranian media of being an
American spy.
 Zakka disappeared in Tehran in September after
attending a government-sponsored conference at the invitation of
Shahendokht Molafrdi, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s vice president
for women’s affairs, in order to attend the Second International
Conference and Exhibition on Women in Sustainable Development, named
“Entrepreneurship and Employment”.

The IJMA3 statement said that Zakka “is undergoing further physical
and psychological pressure by his captors in an attempt to extract
confessions out of him before his trial kicks off on June 6, 2016.” IJMA3
criticized the Lebanese state for not supporting Zakka, saying “he is
alone in facing an illegal trial… due to his arbitrary arrest and the
conditions and harsh questioning he went through.”

The association
alleged that Zakka is deprived of the “simplest human rights, wasn’t
allowed to check a doctor despite his deteriorating health and was
banned from meeting his country’s consul, or appoint an unbiased
lawyer.”

It called on international and local human rights NGOs to demand his release.