Local Woman Released from Iranian Prison
Washington resident Dr. Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Middle East Program, has been released from prison, the Associated Press and the Washington Post are both reporting.
Even after family members turned over 3 billion rials (nearly $325,000) in bail money, it remains unclear if the espionage charge still stand or if Esfandiari, 67, is allowed to leave Iran.
Since May 8, Esfandiari has been held at Evin prison north of Tehran, a notorious dumping ground for political prisoners. No none is sure what prompted the release, but a Wilson Center spokesperson said for the last seven months many official and unofficial channels have been working to help get Esfandiari back to the U.S. , though the U.S. and Iran have not had official diplomatic relations since 1979.
"I do not know what goes on inside the Iranian government. I think an important factor was my letter to the supreme leader a few weeks ago," Lee Hamilton told reporters in a Tuesday teleconference. Hamilton, head of the Wilson Center and a former congressman, said he had sent letters to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Photo of Esfandiari released to the AP by her family
"We rejoice at the news of Haleh's release," Hamilton said in a Wilson Center statement. "This has been a long and trying ordeal for her and for her family. Her physical and mental well-being is now the urgent priority. We want to see her well, we want her to be permitted to return to the United States, and we want to see her reunited with her family."
The Iranian-American was on her way back to D.C. last December after visiting her 93-year-old mother when she was attacked in the airport by three men with knives. Her baggage and Iranian and American passports were stolen. While attempting to secure new Iranian travel documents so she could leave the country, Esfandiari was interrogated for more than 50 hours over three weeks by Iranian intelligence officials. The questions dealt exclusively with her work with the Wilson Center, where she began working as a fellow in 1995.
According to Wilson Center press releases, "interrogators could have obtained virtually all the information they sought in a far less cumbersome way — by a few clicks on the Wilson Center website and through Wilson Center publications."
The Iranian Intelligence Ministry accused Esfandiari and the Wilson Center of setting up underground networks in Iran with the ultimate goal of staging a "soft revolution" against the Ahmadinejad government. The Wilson Center, which was created by an act of Congress in 1968, and Esfandiari's husband, a Middle Eastern studies professor at George Mason University, deny such allegations. After repeatedly refusing to confess to coming to Iran to engage in anti-government activities, Effandiari was asked to report to the Ministry of Intelligence May 7, where she was arrested and transported to Evin prison.
Three other Iranian-Americans — Kian Tajbakhsh, Parnaz Azima, and Ali Shakeri — are still either imprisoned or detained in Iran.