Iran holding US-Iranian academic for 'security' crimes

As Iran’s judiciary acknowledged that the country’s intelligence is investigating an American-Iranian academic for security crimes, US Secretary of State blasted the detention and called on Tehran today to immediately release Haleh Esfandiari.

Detained by Iranian authorities during a visit to see her 93-year-old mother in Iran, Esfandiari is under investigation for “security” crimes, the Iranian judiciary said today.

The announcement was the first official word on the investigation against Esfandiari, the director of the Middle East Program at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Centre for Scholars, who has been held for a week at Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison.

Asked about Esfandiari’s arrest, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that the Iranian-American “ought to be released and she ought to be released immediately.”

“It just underscores the nature of the Iranian regime and it just gives strength to the argument that the regime does not, in addition to all of the problems that it causes internationally, does not treat its people … very well,” Rice said.

She was speaking to reporters in Moscow after meeting with Russian leaders.

Over the weekend, the hard-line Iranian newspaper Kayhan said that Esfandiari was accused of spying for the US and Israel and for attempting to topple the Iranian government.

Esfandiari’s husband, Shaul Bakhash, has denied the newspaper’s allegations.

Judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi did not repeat the specifics given by Kayhan. He said Esfandiari was being investigated for “security” crimes but did not elaborate and did not give details on what specific actions led to her arrest.

“Charges against Esfandiari are being investigated by the Intelligence Ministry … She is being held at Evin prison,” Jamshidi told reporters today.

The 67-year-old Esfandiari, who has been living in the US since 1980, has for years brought prominent Iranians to Washington to talk about the situation in Iran, some of whom have been detained and subsequently questioned back home.

Her defenders in the US say some of those she brought to the US were supporters of the Iranian government who sought to explain Tehran’s stance to Americans.

Esfandiari had been trapped in Iran since December, when three masked men with knives stole her luggage and passport as she headed to the airport to leave, according to the Wilson Centre.

In the weeks before her arrest, she was called in for questioning daily on her activities, the centre says.

Her arrest came amid increasing restrictions on domestic non-governmental organisations – particularly women’s rights groups – and other critics by the hard-line government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Iranian authorities have stepped up their warnings that the United States aims to use internal critics to destabilise the Iranian government amid the mounting tensions between the two countries.

Kayhan claimed that Esfandiari was working with Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency “in driving a velvet revolution strategy in Iran” and that she formed networks of activists to topple the Iranian government.

Bakhash, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, called the accusations “fantasies” and “untrue.”

Also today, Jamshidi also said a journalist, Ali Farahbakhsh, who was detained in December at Tehran airport after returning from a conference in India, has been sentenced to three years in prison.

Jamshidi did not specify the charges against him, but Farahbakhsh’s lawyer, Morteza Alizadeh Tabatabaei, said his client has been detained over charges of espionage.

Other Iranian-Americans have also been prohibited from leaving Iran in recent months, including journalist Parnaz Azima, who works for the US-funded Radio Farda.

Another American, former FBI agent Robert Levinson, disappeared in March after going to Iran’s resort island of Kish, and his whereabouts are unknown.