| Page 2 of 2 < |
Freed Iranian-American Cannot Leave Iran
During her four months in the prison, north of Tehran, Esfandiari was in solitary confinement with no access to lawyers, Ebadi said.
The lawyer said she already has filed a complaint with the U.N. Human Rights Council against what she called the "arbitrary" arrest of Esfandiari.
  In this image made from video provided by IRIB/IRRIN, Haleh Esfandiari, director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, speaks to reporters after her release from the Evin prison in Tehran, Iran on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2007l. The detained Iranian-American academic was suddenly released after spending months behind bars on charges of endangering Iranian national security - allegations her family vehemently denies. (AP Photo/IRIB/IRRIN) (AP) PHOTOS |
After her sudden release late Tuesday, Esfandiari was shown on Iranian state television walking out of the prison and meeting family members in a car on a nearby street.
"I thank all those who made efforts to make it possible for me to go home," she said on Iranian TV. She added that her jailers were polite and she had recently been allowed to read newspapers and watch television.
Esfandiari's husband, Shaul Bakhash, spoke with her by phone Tuesday and said the release was a complete surprise to his wife. She was in disbelief when Iranian officials told her that she could leave, even asking if they were joking, he said.
Esfandiari told her family she was treated well in prison, but was kept in solitary confinement in a cell with one window and was on a strict regimen, pacing the room for exercise. She was able to buy fruit from her jailers, Bakhash said Wednesday.
Esfandiari revealed little about her interrogations, but told her husband that much of it focused on her work.
"She said, 'The problem was not so much me as their misapprehension about the Wilson Center,'" according to Bakhash.
He said his wife wants to return to the U.S. and is optimistic she will get her passport back.
Esfandiari's daughter, Haleh Bakhash, said Tuesday her mother's health has been a concern. Esfandiari suffered from arthritis as well as pain in her eyes but the family was not allowed to deliver medicine to her, the daughter said in phone interviews from the United States.
Esfandiari, who only weighed 105 pounds to begin with, appeared to have lost weight.
Iran has charged three other Iranian-Americans with security-related offenses: Parnaz Azima, a journalist for U.S.-funded Radio Farda; Kian Tajbakhsh, an urban planning consultant with the Soros Foundation's Open Society Institute; and Ali Shakeri, a founding board member of the Center for Citizen Peacebuilding at the University of California, Irvine.
Shakeri and Tajbakhsh are in prison; Azima is free but barred from leaving Iran.
___
Associated Press Writer Stephen Manning from Washington contributed to this report.
___
On the Net:
