Iranian-American Scholar Faces New Spying Charges

An academic who holds both American and Iranian citizenship and was already serving a 15-year prison sentence for spying against the Iranian government now faces additional charges, according to The New York Times. Kian Tajbakhsh told his wife that he was taken last week before a Tehran court, where a judge read new charges that accused him of “spying for the George Soros foundation,” a reference to the Open Society Institute, a pro-democracy group founded by Mr. Soros, a prominent financier and philanthropist. Mr. Tajbakhsh, an urban planner with a doctorate from Columbia University, was arrested in June after protests broke out over that month’s disputed presidential election, which the opposition says was fraudulent. He is in solitary confinement and suffering under “huge psychological and physical pressure,” according to the Times.