Haider Mullick, a research intern at the Woodrow Wilson Center, has published an op-ed in a leading Pakistani-American newspaper (The Pakistan Link) about Haleh’s case:

Esfandiari’s illegal detainment is not just an attack on an Iranian American scholar or a highly regarded think tank, but an attack on the fundamental global struggle for objective, reasoned and unfettered scholarship…

How can an Iran that incarcerates a scholar visiting her 93 year old mother expect to placate Western fears of a nuclear showdown? Rather than commit such an egregious act as imprisoning Esfandiari, Ahmedinejad should have provided state funds to send government representatives to provide the other side of the story in Washington’s think tank world. Better yet he should have approached Esfandiari to act as a productive intermediary to expedite and strengthen ongoing back-door diplomatic efforts with the Americans. Yet instead he has just invited the scorn of the scholarly world. How many scholars will visit Iran now? And what will they say in Washington’s policy circles?

In a letter to President Ahmedinejad, Barry M. Kamins of the New York Bar Association calls for the Iranian president’s attention in the matter of Haleh’s imprisonment and her subsequent release from prison.

Your Excellency:

I am writing on behalf of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York (the “Association”) to respectfully request the immediate, unconditional release of Dr. Haleh Esfandiari from Evin Prison.

The Association is an independent non-governmental organization with more than 23,000 members in over 50 countries. Founded in 1870, the Association has a long history of dedication to human rights, notably through its Committee on International Human Rights, which investigates reports on human rights conditions around the world, including within the United States.

Based on Iran’s domestic law and international obligations, we protest Dr. Esfandiari’s arrest and detention and her deprivation of the right to counsel. We therefore urge you to immediately release Dr. Esfandiari, restore her travel documents and allow her to return to her family and her academic activities.

I respectfully request that you direct your attention to this important matter.

Very truly yours,

Barry M. Kamins

To read the letter in its entirety, click here

In her statement issued on Wednesday, Senator Clinton wrote:

I am saddened and dismayed by the continued detention of Dr. Haleh
Esfandiari and Parnaz Azima, and the recent arrests of fellow Iranian-Americans Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh and Ali Shakeri. I have joined the fifteen women Senators in writing to Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon urging him to intervene on behalf of Dr. Esfandiari and Ms. Azima, and I am gravely disappointed that the situation in Iran has been allowed to escalate. It is an unconscionable violation of human rights to detain and imprison individuals without just cause, and we cannot let this situation stand.

To read Senator Clinton’s full statement, please click here

Via World Politics Review

In New York Wednesday, Amnesty International and other human rights groups sponsored a vigil calling for the immediate release of detained Iranian-Americans by Tehran. In May, the government of Iran arrested four Iranian-Americans on accusations of harming national security.

More than a hundred protesters rallied in the humid mid-day heat outside the United Nations, chanting for the release of prominent U.S. scholar Haleh Esfandiari from the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran.

Esfandiari’s husband, Shaul Bakhash, was among the protesters.

“We know that interrogations at Evin Prison are not nice nor gentle. She needs medication. She needs medical attention. I think it’s unconscionable that the authorities in Evin Prison keep her not only in prison but don’t allow family visits or legal representation,” he said\.

To read the full report by Sean Maroney, please click here

Amnesty International, among other human rights organizations, sponsored a vigil today at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza for Dr. Haleh Esfandiari, an Iranian-American scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Institute, who has been incarcerated in solitary confinement for over a month in Tehran’s gruesome Evin Prison. The charge against her? Spying for the United States. She had traveled back to Iran to visit her ailing mother and was arrested by Iran’s secret police.

Read the full blog entry and see pictures by clicking here