Professor Shaul Bakhash of George Mason Univeristy writes an opinion editorial in the Los Angeles Times explaining the details surrounding his wife’s imprisonment and his efforts to help free her.

ON MAY 8, the walls of Tehran’s Evin prison closed around my wife, Haleh Esfandiari, a 67-year-old scholar, grandmother and dual citizen of Iran and the United States. At first, she told me by e-mail and phone, her inquisitors asked about her work, who spoke at what conference, where and when — things they could easily find with the click of a mouse on the Wilson Center’s website. But Haleh told them what she remembered about the lectures, exchanges, panels and classes she had arranged. To help with the details, I e-mailed piles of downloaded documents at night.

If the questions seemed almost laughable, the interrogations were not. They were accompanied by threats, accusations and intimidation — and always the implication that Haleh was involved in something nefarious.

Since her incarceration 17 days ago, Haleh has been allowed only one- or two-minute phone calls with her mother. She speaks as if a minder is present. No visits are allowed, no legal representation. With so little contact, I have every reason to assume the worst: that she is subject to blindfolding, solitary confinement and harsh, even brutal interrogation calculated to extract a false confession.

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My wife, a prisoner in Iran