Iranian officials said today that Haleh Esfandiari, a prominent Iranian-American academic who was arrested this month during a visit to Tehran, is being investigated for “security” crimes, according to the Associated Press. Also today, the U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, called for her immediate release.

Ms. Esfandiari is director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a nonpartisan research institution that receives about one-third of its budget from the U.S. government and the rest from private sources. Ms. Esfandiari, a dual citizen of the United States and Iran, traveled to Tehran in late December to visit her 93-year-old mother. —Beth McMurtrie