Haleh Esfandiari and the persecuted women of Iran
[ IT ]
Martina TotiEvin is Tehran'’s hardest, most feared and most dangerous prison. Political dissidents and opponents of the regime all find their way here, and they, since May 8th, have been joined by Haleh Esfandiari, the Iranian-American Director of the Middle East Program at Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars. Haleh is 67 years old, and had returned to her home country in December to visit her mother. Ahmadinejad'’s regime prooved unwilling to forgive her holding both American and Iranian passports, however, and she was finally moved to Evin prison after more than four months under house arrest.
Charges - officially pronounced on May 21st but leaked in the days running up to her arrest by sections of the media close to the Iranian government – accuse her of espionage. According to the conservative daily Kayhan, the American-Iranian scholar is alleged to be a spy working for Israel. The Iranian minister of intelligence has claimed that she has been trying to secretly incite a revolution by creating a network “"against Iran'’s sovereignty"”. However, in Esfandiari’s case, there are three important issues which count: the fact that she is a woman, that she has a dual passport, and the context in which the arrest took place.
These are difficult times for Iranian women. Since April, following the announcement of guidelines for a new 'moralization' campaign, the police have applied a strict dress code, enforcing the wearing of the veil, and arresting and inflicting beatings on women and girls who do not respect it. In the first few days following the passing of this law, government officials claimed to have arrested around 150,000 women, many of whom were released after having admitted their crime (not wearing the hijab) and asking for forgiveness. 203 representatives in the Iranian parliament signed a letter which supported the police and criticised the United States and Israel for inciting Iranian women to defy the code.
According to The Washington Post, in addition to the Woodrow Wilson Center scholar, two other women with dual citizenship are being held in Tehran’'s prisons: – Parnaz Azima, a journalist working for Radio Farda, an English language radio broadcasting in Iran which is financially supported by United States; and a second woman who wished her identity to remain anonymous. A third woman will be defending Haleh Esfandiari, and one not much loved by Ahmadinejad’s regime – the Nobel prize winner Shirin Ebadi, whose requests to visit Evin prison were refused, after claims that Esfandiari had refused legal support. Access to her files was also refused, as Ebadi herself states in an interview with CNN, published on YouTube.
The first of the slurs on Haleh Esfandari are the fact that she is a woman, and that she holds a prominent position in a U.S. academic institution. The second would seem to be her dual passport. It is on the issue of dual citizenships that Tehran is playing its game with the West, and in particular with United States. Last year it was the turn of Ramin Jahanbegloo, holder of both a Canadian and Iranian passport, who was detained in Evin prison for four months because of his connections in the West. This year, besides the Director of the Middle East Program and the Radio Farda journalist, Kian Tajbakhsh, a researcher at George Soros’' Open Society Institute, was also arrested. The charges against him? The same as levelled against Esfandiari. And as against Ramin Jahanbegloo last year. There have also been incidents of “"missing persons"”, two of whom have apparently disappeared without a trace: an Iranian businessman who lives in, and has not returned to, California, and a former FBI agent desaparecido on the Iranian isle of Kish.
These are the circumstances under which, on May 28th, the second official meeting between Iran and United States since the hostage crisis and the breaking off of diplomatic relations 27 years ago took place. Just a few hours prior to that meeting, Tehran accused Washington of plotting against its regime, and the United States rejected the possibility of an exchange of five pasdaran captured in Iraq for the Iranian-Americans held in Tehran’'s prisons, including Haleh Esfandiari. Meanwhile, protests and petitions asking the prisoners’' release continue to circulate on the internet. The appeal for their release can be joined and continuous updates on their inprisonment found on the website www.freehaleh.org.
Translation by Liz Longden
27 Jun 2007
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