When Shadi Ghadirian was 21, she got a student job printing old photographs at the small photography museum here. She was so drawn by the 19th-century pictures of women with thick black eyebrows wearing head scarves and short skirts over baggy pants that two years later, in 2000, she began incorporating the imagery into her own photography.
The Iranian authorities use interrogation techniques such as intimidation, threats and blindfolding, said the husband of a detained American academic, and he is very worried that his wife could be subjected to these tactics. Shaul Bakhash, the husband of Haleh Esfandiari, who was charged with spying by Iranian authorities, said he has not spoken to his wife since her detention and is concerned about her mental and physical condition.
She has been allowed to make phone calls to her mother in Tehran a few times a week, said her husband. He said that nothing of substance is discussed on the calls, and that despite the brevity of the calls, her mother looks forward to them every day. “Her mother in Tehran is ecstatic,” said Bakhash. “She hangs on them so much.” The colleagues of Esfandiari pleaded today for her release. “Haleh is innocent. She should be set free,” said Lee Hamilton, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center where Esfandiari works. Esfandiari is one of four Americans currently detained in Iran. The others are Parnaz Azima, a Radio Farda journalist, Kian Tajbakhsh, a scholar with the Soros Foundation’s Open Society Institute, and Ali Shakeri, confirmed by the State Department for the first time today as being detained by Iranian authorities. Deputy State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the string of detentions are part of a “disturbing pattern.” Esfandiari’s troubles began as she drove to the airport in Tehran to catch a flight back to her home in Washington, D.C., after visiting her ailing mother. According to her family, she was robbed at knifepoint by masked men who took her bags and passport. When she went to get a new passport, she was pulled aside at the passport office and subjected to lengthy interrogations by Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence. Those interrogations continued for several weeks. A Feb. 20 letter by Wilson Center Director Lee Hamilton to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad requesting Esfandiari’s release was not answered.
Source: ABC News
Radio Fardas reports independent academic and human rights groups today are demanding the immediate release of two Iranian-American scholars jailed in Tehran on charges of spying. The U.S.-based International Society for Iranian Studies has urged Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to release jailed scholars Haleh Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh. It also expresses concerns about possible torture of the scholars by their Iranian jailers to force them to make confessions.
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the International Federation of Human Rights, Reporters Without Borders, and Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi also are calling on Tehran to release the scholars immediately. Those groups also are urging Tehran to lift travel bans on two journalists with dual-citizenship — Parnaz Azima, a U.S.-Iranian correspondent for U.S.-government funded Radio Farda, and Mehrnoush Solouki, a French-Iranian journalism student. Ebadi, whose work for democracy and women and children’s rights made her the first-ever Iranian recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, accused Iran’s judiciary of “denying dual-nationals their basic rights” and disregarding “Iran’s laws as well as international norms.” Ebadi and her Defenders of Human Rights Center are working on behalf of two of the defendants. The groups also are seeking information about Ali Shakeri, an Iranian-American peace activist who went missing during a visit to Iran. The groups say Shakeri is thought to have been jailed by Iranian authorities. All of the groups accuse Tehran of trying to spread fear among journalists, writers, scholars, and activists.
The U.S. State Department has confirmed that an U.S.-Iranian citizen missing in Iran for more than two weeks has been detained by Iranian authorities. State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said Washington is seeking consular access for Ali Shakeri — a peace activist who was supposed to have left Iran to fly to Europe on May 13.
Shakeri is the third Iranian-American detained in Iran in recent weeks. The other two are Haleh Esfandiari, the head of the Middle East Program at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Institute, and Kian Tajbakhsh, a consultant with the Open Society Institute. Both have been charged with endangering Iranian national security through propaganda against the system and espionage for foreigners. Authorities have meanwhile prevented Prague-based Radio Farda journalist Parnaz Azima from leaving the country, and announced a charge of acting against Iranian national security against her. They are also blocking the departure of French-Iranian journalism student Mehrnoush Solouki.
Source: Associated Press
