Abstract:
An Iranian-American scholar who directs the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington was jailed in Tehran earlier this week. Haleh Esfandiari had gone to Iran late last year to visit her elderly mother and was on her way to Tehran airport to return home on Dec. 30 when she was robbed of her American and Iranian passports. She was then held under what amounted to house arrest and subjected to repeated interrogation about her activities at the Wilson Center. There was hope that the Iranian authorities would allow her to leave, but on May 8 she was sent to Tehran's infamous Evin Prison.
