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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Iran's detention of American academic sends chilling message |
| 2007-05-12 |
| Tehran's imprisonment of a prominent American-Iranian academic illustrates the Iranian government's increasing fear that the U.S. is using pro-democracy advocates to plot regime change against it, analysts say. Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, went to Iran on a personal visit to see her ailing mother last year. Now she is held in a notorious Iranian prison, her Washington-based institute said. Before her arrest on Tuesday, she was trapped in the country after masked men stole her luggage and passports as she tried to leave in December. In the intervening months, she was repeatedly interrogated by authorities for up to eight hours a day and questioned mainly on the activities of the Wilson Center, according to the organization. "There is a paranoia of people with ties to Iran coming from the U.S.," said Jon B. Alterman, of the Washington Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The sad thing is that when you start accusing women like Esfandiari, you are grasping at straws." The 67-year-old Esfandiari, who has been living in the U.S. since 1980, has for years brought prominent Iranians to Washington to talk about social change. Some have been detained and subsequently questioned back home because of "Iranian concerns about people talking openly about dramatic change in the country," Alterman said. Tehran officials have not said a word on Esfandiari — nor confirmed she is being held in Evin prison. The arrest came amid increasing restrictions on domestic non-governmental organizations — particularly women's rights groups — by the hard-line government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "The government is suspicious of consultancy groups, think tanks, there is a fear that these groups are mobilizing inside and outside the country for dissent," Mahan Abedin from the London-based Center for the Study of Terrorism, said. "Arrests such as this one are a heavy handed, sledgehammer approach to remove the threat." Karim Sadjadpour, an expert on Iran at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, said some of the Iranian scholars and analysts Esfandiari had brought to the U.S. for visits in the past were sympathetic to the Iranian government. "By detaining her, the Iranian government only eliminates an advocate for diplomacy and strengthens the voices of those in Washington who say the regime is too cruel to be engaged," he said. |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #1 Red on red. |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2007-05-12 08:50 |