A SECOND
“ZAHRA KAZEMI” CASE?
The Iranian
Leadership keeps on arresting Iranian citizens living
abroad, particularly in the USA, in the recent period.
Having arrived in Iran to visit her 93 year old sick mother
in Tehran, the US and Iranian citizen academician Hale
Esfendiyari was arrested for “acting against the security of
the state”.
Having left
Iran in 1980 and has been continuing her academic studies in
the US since then, Esfendiyari was mugged by 3 masked men
bearing knives on her way to the Tehran Airport to fly back
to the US on December 30 and her Iranian passport was
stolen. Having failed to receive a new passport despite her
application, Esfendiyari was interrogated by the members of
the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence several times until
February 14, 2007, summoned to the Ministry of Intelligence
once again on May 8, 2007, arrested and put to the infamous
Evin Prison in Tehran.
It is
reported that Esfendiyari, working as the Middle East
program director of the “Woodrow Wilson International Center
For Scholars” in the US, was subjected to pressures and
torture so as to force her “admit crimes she has not
committed” during the interrogation. “I concern over the
life of my wife,” said Hale Esfendiyari’s husband Shaul
Bakhash, also an academician working on Middle Eastern
studies, stating that a 67 year old lady should not be
imprisoned regardless of the reason. Meanwhile, diplomatic
sources indicate that though Esfendiyari visits her sick
mother twice a year by traveling to Iran, the timing of her
arrest is thought-provoking and that it could be related
with the tension encountered with the USA. Condemning the
incident, diplomatic circles underline that the number of US
citizens of Iranian descent, like Esfendiyari, has
increased, and that the passport of Pernaz Azima, the
correspondent of Radio Farda, who traveled to Tehran to
visit of her sick mother, was confiscated and that she has
not been given permission to leave the country, yet.
Another
arrest story is about Kyan Tajbakhshy, another US citizen of
Iranian descent. It is reported that working as an urban
planning adviser for the World Bank, Tajbakhshi was detained
on May 11, 2007. It is stated that 45 years old Kyan
Tajbakhshi has been working as an adviser in George Soros’
Open Society Institute since 2004 “under the knowledge of
the Iranian government”.
