Tehran should immediately release the American citizens it has detained. Friday, June 1, 2007; Page A14
PARANOID that a network of U.S. scholars and thinkers is fomenting a velvet revolution, Iran charged three U.S.-Iranian citizens with espionage this week. If convicted, they face execution.
The accused are Haleh Esfandiari, the 67-year-old director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; Kian Tajbakhsh, 45, a respected social scientist at the New School in New York who has consulted for George Soros's Open Society Institute and the World Bank; and Radio Farda journalist Parnaz Azima, 59. The government and various state news agencies have accused these Iranian Americans and their organizations of endangering state security on the basis of their supposedly treacherous attempts to foster dialogue and exchange.
The charges are ludicrous. Ms. Esfandiari, who has invited scholars and statesmen from Iran to U.S. conferences and events, has been criticized by some in the Iranian American community as being too soft on the current regime. And not only has Mr. Tajbakhsh consulted directly for the Iranian government, but the supposedly "Zionist" and "soft overthrow"-obsessed organization he works for, the Open Society Institute, has run all its humanitarian and health outreach programs in Iran with the full cooperation of the Iranian government, sometimes even at the government's initiative. Iran's government approached the institute in 2003, for example, to provide relief after the Bam earthquake. The idea that any of these people were in Iran to concoct a U.S.-funded insurgent network is especially absurd, given that all three were there on private visits, with both Ms. Esfandiari and Ms. Azima visiting their ailing mothers.
The list of foreign hostages doesn't stop there. U.S.-Iranian businessman Ali Shakeri, who is on the board of the University of California at Irvine's Center for Citizen Peacebuilding, was arrested on May 8 on his way back to the United States (also after visiting his ill mother, who died during his stay). A fifth U.S.-Iranian citizen is also imprisoned, although his name has not been released. Ex-FBI agent Robert Levinson disappeared in Iran in March and may be imprisoned, though Iran has denied any knowledge of his whereabouts. And an Iranian French national, journalism student Mehrnoushe Solouki, has been forbidden to leave the country, according to Reporters Without Borders.
These individuals are pawns. Those in Iran who care about the world's respect should press for their release.