Johan Floderus and his now-fiancé Johnathan von Fürstenmühl kept their relationship under wraps during the time Floderus, a Swedish diplomat and European Union official, was imprisoned in Iran — in order to keep him safer, the couple told Swedish TV4 Nyheterna in an interview.
Homosexuality is punishable by death in Iran, and thousands have been executed for it there since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
“That type of news would spread fast. I thought it was best for me to keep it private,” said Johan Floderus. “My strong feelings for my then-boyfriend and now-fiancé Jonathan kept me alive,” he added in the Swedish TV interview.
Floderus also spoke about his experience in the infamous Evin Prison for political prisoners, calling it “a nightmare.”
“Life sort of flashed before my eyes when I was lying there on a concrete floor, detained in Iran during the first 24 hours,” he said.
Floderus, an employee with the European External Action Service — the EU’s foreign policy body — was arrested in Iran in April 2022 during a personal trip to visit friends.
The arrest was kept under wraps for more than a year, only coming to light in September 2023. Iranian prosecutors accused him of espionage, though failed to present evidence in support of the claim. He was released in June this year as part of a prisoner swap.
“Everyone asks if [being free] feels unreal. But if feels very, very real … I can walk more than three or four steps without my nose hitting a wall. I can feel the sun on my skin and the wind in my hair,” he described.
Floderus proposed to his partner at the Stockholm Arlanda Airport immediately after he was freed and transferred to Sweden, on June 15.
“I had longed for that moment for 790 days. When that moment came, I thought: I didn’t want to waste a single second,” said Floderus. He had decided to propose to his boyfriend on the first night in captivity in Iran, he said.
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