Haleh Esfandiari, a prominent Iranian-American academic, was imprisoned in Tehran on Tuesday during a visit to Iran, according to articles in today’s Washington Post and New York Times. 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. On December 30, on her way to the airport to leave Iran, her taxi was stopped by three knife-wielding men who stole her baggage, including her passports, according to the Woodrow Wilson Center. Four days later, while applying for replacement Iranian travel documents, she was “invited” to an interview with an Iranian official, for what turned out to be six weeks of daily interrogations at Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence. The questions focused almost entirely on the activities and programs of the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Ms. Esfandiari was allowed to sleep at her mother’s house each night. But after refusing to make a false confession, she was arrested on Tuesday and incarcerated in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison. —Burton Bollag
