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BACKGROUND INFORMATION: American-Iranian academic Haleh Esfandiari, detained for the past three months on charges of espionage and plotting to topple Iran’s Islamic regime, was released on 21 August 2007 after her family paid £160,000 bail. She was subjected to intensive interrogations, solitary confinement and a televised ‘confession’ of an alleged US conspiracy to incite a ‘soft revolution’, according to the Guardian. Ms Esfandiari, who works for the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Centre, had travelled to Iran to look after her ailing mother. She was prevented from leaving the country after masked men ambushed her car in December 2006 while on her way to Tehran’s Mehrabad airport. The BBC reports that they stole her belongings, including her Iranian and US passports. When she attempted to replace the passport, she was sent to the Intelligence Ministry where she was repeatedly questioned, before being taken to the notorious Evrin Prison in Tehran. It is reported that her release came two weeks after Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, responded to a 29 June 2007 letter appealing for her freedom According to Lee H. Hamilton, the director of the Wilson Centre. Mr Hamilton, who was the former congressman who helped lead the Iraq Study Group, his letter was framed in humanitarian and religious terms, rather than referring to the tensions between Iran and the US. Countless other scholars, political figures, students and non-governmental organisations have appealed for her release and the release of other Americans being held by Tehran. Another Iranian-American scholar held since May, Kian Tajbakhsh- an urban planner with ties to the Soros Open Society Institute in New York- has been in custody since May 2007. Both academics appeared last month in a two-part Iranian state-television broadcast that suggested they had been part of a project to try to overthrow the Iranian government much like the ‘velvet revolutions’ in former Soviet Republics. The Wilson Centre and Soros Institute both denounced the broadcasts and insisted the statements had been made under duress. According to the New York Times, the ISNA student news agency reported that Kian Tajbakhsh might be released on bail within days. Many questions remained unanswered, including whether or not Ms Esfandiari will be allowed to leave Iran and whether she was mistreated in custody. These detentions have added further tension to Iranian-US relations, already hostile because of Iran’s disputed nuclear programme and US accusations that it is aiding insurgents in Iraq. URGENT
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