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Senators Hillary Clinton (D-New York) and Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland) both issued statements calling for the release of the Iranian-American detainees and supporting the vigil at the UN.
Senator Clinton’s statement (full text here):
“I am saddened and dismayed by the continued detention of Dr. Haleh Esfandiari and Parnaz Azima, and the recent arrests of fellow Iranian-Americans Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh […]

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Thank you to all those who turned out for yesterday’s vigil at the United Nations.  More than a hundred people came to demonstrate for the release of Kian, Haleh, Ali, and Parnaz.  Photos will be up soon, but here is an article about the vigil from Voice of America (follow the link for an audio recording).
Human […]

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Siddharth Varadarajan, a journalist and Deputy Editor of The Hindu, is a former classmate and friend of Kian’s and a signatory to the letter by Indian intellectuals on his behalf.  In this post on his blog, he writes about his assocation with Kian and the Indian campaign for Kian’s release. For the text of the […]

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Below are excerpts from some recent opinion pieces on Kian and the other Iranian-American detainees.  Follow the links to read the full articles.
“Our Family Hostage Crisis“, by Dr. Shaul Bakhash, New York Times:
IRAN’S judiciary says it expects to announce a decision this week or next in the case of my wife, Haleh Esfandiari, and two other […]

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A group of Kian’s colleagues in the Urban Planning & Community Development field have sent this letter to the Iranian authorities.  Click on “more” for the list of signatories.
We are urban and regional planners and housing and community development practitioners. We are deeply concerned about the arrest and detention of Kian Tajbakhsh and the charges […]

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Amnesty International, the American Islamic Congress, Human Rights Watch, the National Iranian–American Council, the Near Eastern Studies Department at Princeton University, and Vital Voices Global Partnership have organized a vigil to support Haleh, Kian and the other detained Iranian–Americans. The event begins at noon on Wednesday, June 27th at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza across from […]

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Britain’s three major freedom of expression groups, Index on Censorship, English PEN, and Article 19, have come together to express their concern to the Iranian government via this open letter to the Iranian ambassador in London:
ARTICLE 19, English PEN and Index on Censorship call for the immediate
release of three US-Iranian citizens, charged by the Iranian
authorities […]

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The following letter was published in the Irish Times on Monday:
Jailing of Iranian academic
We, the undersigned Irish academics, are writing to express
our concern at the arrest and incarceration of our fellow scholar, the
Iranian social scientist Dr Kian Tajbakhsh.
He was taken from his home in Tehran on May 11th and has been held
without access to legal […]

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This is a letter from academics, intellectuals, writers, and activists from the Arab world in the fields of human rights, education, culture, and environment:
Kian Tajbakhsh’s detention is a flagrant and unjust violation of the freedom, security and safety of a researcher and an academic who has consistently worked to help the Iranian government develop its […]

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VIGIL TO SUPPORT HUMAN RIGHTS IN IRAN AND TO CALL FOR THE IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF DETAINED IRANIAN-AMERICANS
In May the government of Iran arrested four Iranian-Americans: prominent U.S. scholars Haleh Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh, journalist Parnaz Azima and activist Ali Shakeri. Esfandiari, Tajbakhsh and Shakeri remain in detention without being able to see family, lawyers, or […]

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More than 3,000 people have signed the petition for Kian’s release so far.  Thank you so much for your support–it is very heartening to all of us who are campaigning on his behalf.  Please continue to raise awareness about Kian’s case and those of the other scholars and journalists detained in Iran.

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Academics, intellectuals, journalists, artists, and religious leaders in India–where Kian lived for several years–are campaigning for his release. Many have signed a petition on his behalf, which was delivered to the Iranian embassy in Delhi this week.  An article today in The Hindu describes their efforts:
Prominent artists, intellectuals, public figures urge release of Iranian scholar
NEW DELHI: More […]

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Today marks the fifth week since Kian’s arrest on Friday 11 May.  He has still not seen a lawyer.   Recent press reports suggest that the Iranian judiciary will soon announce whether to indict or release the Iranian-American detainees held in Evin Prison or prevented from leaving the country.  The charges against Kian and the others are completely unfounded, […]

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We have been informed of an online campaign on behalf of Mehrnoushe Solouki, a French-Iranian filmmaker who has been prevented from leaving Iran.  According to the Free Solouki website,
Mehrnoushe Solouki is an independant filmmaker with dual citizenship (France and Iran) and a resident of Canada, where she is pursuing her PhD. She was arrested in Tehran […]

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Article 19, the Global Campaign for Free Expression, has launched an appeal on behalf of the Iranian-Americans detained in Iran.  The full appeal text can be seen here (PDF).  According to the press release:
ARTICLE 19 calls for the immediate release of three U.S.-Iranian citizens charged by the Iranian authorities with “acting against national security by […]

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The New York Resident has published this detailed profile of Kian, focusing on his life and work in New York and his decision to return to Iran:
In many ways, Kian Tajbakhsh was a quintessential New Yorker who loved eating sushi and browsing the aisles of the Strand bookstore. By night, the former New School professor […]

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The American Iranian Council has released this statement condemning the arrests of dual nationals:
The American Iranian Council protests, in strongest terms, the arrest of several Iranian-Americans by the Iranian Government, demands their immediate release, and asks that they be justly treated while in the Iranian Government’s custody. The arrestees include Dr. Haleh Esfandiary, Dr. Kian […]

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Several senior international public health experts in the field of HIV/AIDS prevention and harm reduction have released the following letter to the Iranian authorities on Kian’s arrest:
We write to express our grave concern about the arrest of Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh, a noted scholar and expert who has worked with international organizations including the Open Society […]

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Syed Mohammed Ali has an op-ed piece in the Daily Times of Pakistan about the Kian and the other detainees and US-Iran relations.  It reads in part:
Iran has arrested four prominent American Iranian citizens during the past month. Those arrested by Iranian intelligence agencies include Haleh Esfandiari, the Middle East programme head at the Woodrow […]

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Today marks the fourth full week that Kian has been in Evin Prison.  He was arrested on Friday May 11th.  He has still not seen a lawyer.

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A group of Kian’s former colleagues from the New School have written a letter to the Iranian authorities on his behalf.  They delivered it today to the Iranian mission to the United Nations:
We write this letter as former colleagues of Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh at the Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy at The New School in New […]

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University College London, where Kian earned a master’s degree in urban planning, has released a statement about his arrest, with a link to the Free Kian campaign.  The statement reads:
UCL statement: incarceration of Dr Kian Tajbakhsh
8 June 2007
UCL is deeply concerned by news of the arrest of one of its graduates, Dr Kian Tajbakhsh, who […]

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The Free Kian Campaign now has a Farsi-language webpage here.  Please share the address with others.

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In the current issue of The New York Review of Books there is a public letter calling for Haleh Esfandiari’s release, signed by over a hundred prominent intellectuals, writers, and Middle East experts.  Because Kian’s case did not become public until after Haleh’s, his name was not included in this appeal, but in the same […]

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