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| Wilson Continues Work for Release of Dr. Haleh Esfandiari, Woodrow Wilson Scholar, from Detention in Iran |
June 05, 2007 |
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Cosponsors Bipartisan Resolution Urging Her Release
Washington, DC – Congresswoman Heather Wilson, an original cosponsor of a bipartisan resolution urging Iran to release Dr. Haleh Esfandiari, today welcomed a vote on H. Res. 430, expected to pass the House this evening.
Dr. Esfandiari is Director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a former teacher at Princeton University. She is a U.S. citizen and also a citizen of Iran. She was in Iran to visit her 93-year-old mother. Dr. Esfandiari has been imprisoned since May 8. Prior to that, she was interrogated at length and held in house arrest for four months. The resolution urges the Islamic Republic of Iran to immediately release her.
Last month, Wilson sent a letter to Dr. Mohammad Javad Zarif, Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran at the United Nations, urging her immediate release.
In that letter, Wilson said that Dr. Esfandiari has worked tirelessly at providing an unbiased view of Iran by bringing in speakers to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Some of these speakers are critical of the current government in Iran and some are not. Dr. Esfandiari is a scholar and director of the Middle East Program at one of America’s preeminent institutions of international studies.
Dr. Esfandiari’s case is the most prominent recent case of unjustified detention by Iran, but not the only one. In January 2007 the government of Iran confiscated the passport of Radio Farda journalist Parnaz Azima and has interrogated and detained her against her will.
“The deliberate detention of American citizens by the government of Iran in retaliation for the U.S. Government’s support for human rights in Iran only serves to prove to the international community and to the Iranian people that the government of Iran engages in hostage-taking and is flouting the rule of law,” Wilson stated in the May 15 letter.
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