Shaul Bakhash, Haleh’s husband and professor of history at George Mason University, wrote an editorial published in Wednesday’s New York Times advising The Islamic Republic that their own interest lies in the immediate release of Haleh, Kian Tajbakhsh and Ali Shakeri.

The fate of these detainees could be resolved by Iran’s government in a number of ways. Only one would be in the best interests of the Islamic Republic: the detainees should be freed and all charges dropped.

The three detainees are not connected to one another…But so far, their cases have followed an ominously familiar pattern.

First, there is an arrest. Then, to justify the unjustifiable, the authorities come up with outlandish charges and accusations; in the case of my wife and the two men, they are accused of spying and endangering Iran’s national security, allegations vague enough to criminalize the most common scholarly activities.

Next — and we seem to have entered this stage now — some in the Iranian leadership recognize what the imprisonment and false charges are doing to Iran’s international standing, and attempt damage control.

In the case of my wife and the others, the Iranian authorities can repeat the discreditable mistakes of the past or they can emulate the good sense they eventually displayed with the British. They can free the detainees and bring a quick end to what has become an embarrassing episode for Iran and a cruel experience for those they have so unfairly imprisoned.

To read the full editorial, please click here

David Curtis Wright, a professor at the University of Calgary, has published an editorial in the Calgary Herald recalling Haleh’s impact as a teacher:

For me, reports of detentions of prominent persons by governments run some danger of becoming routine. But not this one. This time, it’s different — it’s personal and hits home, squarely in the sternum.

I know Haleh Esfandiari. For an hour every weekday during the 1989-1990 academic year, she and Jerome Clinton patiently endeavoured to teach me Farsi (Persian, Iranian) at Princeton…

Haleh means “halo” in Farsi, and she was indeed an angel of a language teacher. I took up Farsi with the purpose of eventually reading 13th-century Persian chronicles of the expansion of the Mongol world empire.

I did not know any other Middle Eastern languages the way most of the other students in our small class did, so I was at a disadvantage with the language’s vocabulary, which includes many loan words from Arabic and also from various Turkic languages…

But Prof. Esfandiari did not pass me by. She neither assumed nor required any previous language work, and she endeavoured with quiet and dignified patience to teach her native tongue…

I well remember her formal and somewhat courtly manner, her pleasant morning greetings, and even the rattle of her keys as every morning she opened the heavy, old-style lockset of the office door on the first floor of Jones Hall…

But now she sits languishing behind a heavy door in the Evin Prison, with no indication that its keys will rattle against it with a pleasant “good morning” heralding her liberation any time soon.

Haleh Esfandiari is a past contributor to Foreign Policy magazine, which has been following her arrest since last month. Foreign Policy has just published a new interview with Haleh’s husband, Dr. Shaul Bakhash, a professor at George Mason Univerity. Here is an excerpt:

FP: Has anyone heard from Dr. Esfandiari? What are conditions like in the prison?

SB: Haleh has been allowed to make very brief phone calls to her mother in Tehran. These calls last barely a minute, and nothing of substance can be said during them. Our assumption is that there is always a minder standing behind her. But we have absolutely no information on what is going on inside the prison. Our assumption is that she’s still in solitary confinement. Shirin Ebadi describes the cells of Evin prison as very small. Prisoners in this particular security ward sleep on a blanket, not a mattress. Interrogation methods involve intimidation and threats, often fabrications designed to disorient and frighten the detainee. Obviously the aim is often to coerce a false confession from the detainee.

Haleh is 67 years old. She has a fairly serious eye problem, macular degeneration, which requires constant monitoring, and she hasn’t been able to see her eye doctor since she was stopped from leaving Iran. She also has a bone condition which needs monitoring, and we’re not sure whether she has the medications she needs in Evin prison. On one occasion, when her mother tried to deliver some pills that she needs, they refused to accept delivery at the prison gate. Her mother is 93 years old, and we are also very worried about her anxiety and her mental and physical condition as a result of this incarceration.

Dr. Bakhash will be speaking at the rally for Haleh outside the UN on Wednesday at noon. If you can make it to Manhattan, please come and show your support.

Three top British rights groups wrote the Iranian Ambassador in Britain a letter demanding the release of the detained Iranian-American academics. They also expressed their concern over the general state of human rights in Iran.

We are gravely concerned that Tajbakhsh, Esfandiari and Shakeri have been charged in violation of their right to freedom of expression, as outlined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a signatory, and call for their immediate and unconditional release.

For the full text, please click here

As we wait for updates on Haleh’s fate from Iran (with information from the Iranian Judiciary due any day now), the Woodrow Wilson Center suggests one simple way to keep the Free Haleh campaign alive in your local community:

Are you a member of a book group? If so, help raise awareness about the unjust imprisonment of Haleh Esfandiari by making her book Reconstructed Lives: Women and Iran’s Islamic Revolution the next on your list for reading and discussion.

The Wilson Center has a webpage with further information. You can order Haleh’s book via Amazon.

Amnesty International has just announced a United Nations vigil for the release of Iranian-American scholars detained in Iran. Mark your calendar for June 27 at noon and come to New York City to join the peaceful vigil:

VIGIL TO SUPPORT HUMAN RIGHTS IN IRAN AND TO CALL FOR THE IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF DETAINED IRANIAN-AMERICANS

THE IRANIAN GOVERNMENT HAS RECENTLY BEEN ENGAGED IN A WIDESPREAD CRACKDOWN ON CIVIL SOCIETY IN IRAN

In May the government of Iran arrested four Iranian-Americans: prominent U.S. scholars Haleh Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh, journalist Parnaz Azima and activist Ali Shakeri. Esfandiari, Tajbakhsh and Shakeri remain in detention without being able to see family, lawyers, or the ICRC. All four face serious charges stemming from their efforts to promote an Iranian-American dialogue and scholarly work and could be sentenced to long prison terms.

JOIN AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, THE AMERICAN ISLAMIC CONGRESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH AS WE CALL FOR THE RELEASE AND DROPPING OF UNFOUDNED CHARGES AGAINST THE DETAINED IRANIAN-AMERICANS

Haleh Esfandiari

SPEAKERS TO INCLUDE SHAUL BAKHASH, HUSBAND OF HALEH ESFANDIARI, AND ZAINAB AL-SUWAIJ OF THE AMERICAN ISLAMIC CONGRESS

WHERE: Dag Hammarskjold Plaza at 1st Avenue and 47nd Street across from the United Nations Plaza

WHEN: Wednesday June 27, 12 noon to 1 pm

Feel free to bring signs calling for freedom for the detained activists. This is to be a non-political and non-partisan action advocating human rights

For more information contact Sharon McCarter 202-691-4016 or Amnesty International USA 202-675-8755

Haleh’s attorney, Shirin Ebadi, is still unable to see or speak to Haleh after claims made by a justice minister spokesman, Ali Reza Jamshidi, that Ebadi has full access to her client.

Nobel prize winner and lawyer Shirin Ebadi said on Wednesday that she was still being denied access to jailed US-Iranian scholar Haleh Esfandiari after Iran’s judiciary said access was no problem.

Ebadi, appointed Esfandiari’s lawyer by her family, said in a fax obtained by AFP that “on Wednesday I went to the investigating judge in the revolutionary court, and just like Monday I was not allowed in to see her.”

The peace laureate said she went to Evin prison, where Esfandiari is being held pending a possible trial, where the deputy public prosecutor “declined me permission to meet my client.”

“There is no problem for her to be the lawyer and carry out her legal job with freedom, as she has done before,” he added.

However, on Monday, Ebadi said she went to Tehran’s revolutionary court for a meeting with prosecutors but was told Esfandiari “did not need a lawyer”.

Read the article in its entirety here

According to judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi, next week an Iranian Judge will decide whether to indict Haleh on charges brought against her by the Intelligence Ministry. Jamshidi also commented on statements regarding Haleh’s legal representation:

Jamshidi denied that one of the detainees, academic Haleh Esfandiari, had been prevented from gaining access to her lawyer, Iranian Nobel Peace prize winner Shirin Ebadi.

“She (Ebadi) can come right now and take on the case,” the judiciary spokesman told a news conference, after being asked to comment on Ebadi’s statement on Monday that her client was unable to contact her.

Iran has accused Esfandiari and three other Iranian-Americans of activities aimed at undermining the government of the Islamic Republic. Three have been detained and a fourth has been freed on bail.

For the full text of the article, please click here

Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence has formally charged Haleh with with espionage and “endangering national security through propaganda against the system.” The Wilson Center’s President and Director, Lee Hamilton, had the following to say:

We are extremely disheartened to receive this news, Haleh is a scholar. The work she does at the Wilson Center is open, non-partisan, and includes a broad range of views. At the Wilson Center, we do not take positions on issues, but rather, we bring all sides of an issue together for dialogue.

As director of the Middle East Program, Haleh ensured that there was an open dialogue and that she convened meetings which allowed participants and attendees to discuss all views. We do not engage in propaganda. The Wilson Center receives zero funding from the U.S. government’s fund to promote democracy in Iran. Her detention is an affront to the rule of law and common decency.

Please visit the Woodrow Wilson Center website here for more information