By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 15, 2007 11:46 AM

Iran's judiciary said today that it is investigating noted American scholar and Potomac resident Haleh Esfandiari for suspected "crimes against national security," an allegation that immediately produced condemnation from academic circles and international human rights groups.

Judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi told reporters today that Esfandiari, director of Middle East programs at the Smithsonian's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, is being held under the authority of the intelligence ministry. "Her crime is security issues, investigations over crimes against security are still going on," Jamshidi said in Tehran.

In Moscow, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for Esfandiari's release. Her arrest and detention revealed "the nature of the Iranian regime," Rice told reporters. "She ought to be released and she ought to be released immediately."

Human Rights Watch called the Iranian allegations absurd. "They show the paranoia of the Iranian intelligence services," said Hadi Ghaemi, Iran analyst for Human Rights Watch. "It is not at all clear how promoting dialogue between scholars of the two countries can be perceived as acting against national security."

Ghaemi also charged that the investigation was hypocritical, since Tehran is scheduled to launch its own official dialogue with the United States within the next two weeks, at ambassadorial level in Baghdad. A small group of Iranian legislators also today launched a petition to start an Iranian-U.S. friendship committee in parliament, according to the Associated Press.

The vague allegations of possible "crimes against national security" have been used often against writers and scholars, as the basis of either investigations or charges, as a "cloak to justify arbitrary detention and coercive interrogation," Ghaemi said.

In Washington, Wilson Center deputy director Michael van Dusen called the investigation "totally unfounded." Since Esfandiari was first called in for interrogation by the intelligence ministry more than four months ago, the center has provided Iran a complete account of every one of its programs on the Middle East. She was taken to prison March 8 after being under virtual house arrest since the beginning of the year.

"We've given Iran all the information on what the Middle East program did and where it got its money. We have been very open. We have nothing to hide," Van Dusen said. "The accusations against her are unfounded."

Esfandiari's husband, George Mason University professor Shaul Bakhash, said any suggestion that his wife had been acting against Iranian national security was baseless. "Everyone who knows Haleh will find the even the suggestion that she acted against Iran's national security absurd. It is time the authorities in Iran brought this totally unnecessary crisis to an end, freed Haleh, and allowed her to rejoin her family," he said.