Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) today released the following statement after news reports that the Iranian government has released Dr. Haleh Esfandiari on bail:
“I join Dr. Esfandiari’s friends and family in relief and joy at today’s news that, after more than 100 days of unjust imprisonment, she has been released by the Iranian government. This […]

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Kian has been held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison for more than 100 days now, and has still not been allowed to see a lawyer.   Our only sight of him has been in the contrived “documentary” on Iranian television, for which he was made to read a coerced statement.

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Mehrangiz Kar, Iranian human rights lawyer and a former prisoner in Evin herself, has written the following op-ed to mark the hundredth days of Haleh’s and Kian’s imprisonment:
Haleh Esfandiari has spent hundred days in solitude and may spend more. Kian Tajbakhsh has spent hundred days in solitude and may spend more. Nothing is known from […]

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New York Senator and Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton released the following statement this week:
“This week marked the 100th day of detention for Iranian American scholars Dr. Haleh Esfandiari, head of the Middle East Progam at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and development consultant Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh.
They have been imprisoned in Tehran […]

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Dermot Dix, an Irish friend of Kian’s, wrote this piece for the Dubliner Magazine:
My friend Kian and I sometimes joke about ‘I’ countries: he is from Iran, I am from Ireland, and the last two countries where we met are Italy and India. Kian was arrested in Tehran on May 11th and has been held […]

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Some of Kian’s friends and colleagues here in New York have joined us to make short video clips sharing their stories about Kian and their thoughts on his current situation. 
Nidhi Srinivas, Assistant Professor at the Milano School of Management and Urban Policy, speaks about Kian from the office they once shared, where some of Kian’s […]

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Below is some footage of last month’s vigil for the detainees at UN Plaza:

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Pakistani journalist and author Ahmed Rashid, who is a friend of Kian’s, has written about his arrest in The Guardian.
Iran’s thought criminals
My friend, Kian Tajbakhsh, is in jail in Iran for … well, being an intellectual. He has not had access to a lawyer nor any visitors since being jailed for espionage and undermining the […]

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Journalist Nooshabeh Amiri and human rights lawyer Mehrangiz Kar have both written in Rooz Online about “confessions” in the cases of the Iranian-American detainees and others unjustly held in Evin Prison.  Amiri writes about the conditions under which false confessions are extracted:
Depriving a prisoner from sleep. Stealing the comfort of darkness from a prisoner through lights […]

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The broadcast of the television “documentary” containing footage of Kian and Haleh has drawn swift condemnation.  Haleh Esfandiari’s daughter Haleh Bakhsh published this piece in the Washington Post about the program. She writes, in part:
It was obvious from the words she used that much of what my mother said was scripted. Some of the phrases […]

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The “documentary” produced by Iranian authorities and containing coerced footage of the detainees aired on Wednesday and Thursday with the title “In the Name of Democracy.”  Out of respect for the dignity of Kian, Haleh, and others forced to appear in this footage, we will not be posting video clips from the program, although those who […]

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Farideh Farhi of the University of Hawaii published this excellent analysis of the initial footage of Kian and Haleh, and the US media coverage of it, at Informed Comment Global Affairs.  She has given us permission to reprint it here:
Yesterday one of the channels the Iranian national television (IRTV) showed a trailer for an upcoming […]

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A number of Turkish academics have written a letter to the Iranian government on Kian’s behalf.  The text and signatories of the letter are below.  They join the many Turkish names on the Free Kian petition in calling for his immediate release.
We, the scholars from Turkey, are very concerned about the developments regarding freedom of expression […]

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Today, Iranian state television showed clips of Kian and Haleh from a program called “In the Name of Democracy” that will be broadcast in full on Wednesday.  The program purports to reveal that they were involved in efforts to undermine the Iranian government.  The charges are ludicrous, and these statements are clearly coerced.  Kian and […]

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Imperial College, London, where Kian recieved his undergraduate degree, has released this statement of support:
Respected academic Dr Kian Tajbakhsh, an Imperial College alumnus, was arrested in Iran in May 2007 and has been held without charge ever since. Imperial joins the international community in calling on the Iranian government to allow Dr Tajbakhsh legal representation and […]

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The Iranian judiciary spokesman claimed yesterday that “new evidence” has been discovered and that Iranian authorities are continuing the investigations of Kian and Haleh Esfandiari.  The Open Society Insitute and the Wilson Center have both issued statements rejecting Iran’s allegations and calling for the immediate release of the detainees. 
The Open Society Institute’s statement said in part:
The Open […]

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The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has sent a letter to the Iranian ambassador in Islamabad, calling for Kian’s release.  Kian has participated in a number of HRCP meetings and events.  The letter reads:
We are writing to express our gravest concern over the imprisonment of Iranian scholar Dr Kian Tajbakhsh, along with several others in […]

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The president of the Associatation for the Study of Persianate Societies (ASPS), an international scholarly organization, has written the following letter to President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad to request Kian’s release:
Over a month and a half has passed since the detention of Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh, a distinguished member of this Association, and nothing has been done to […]

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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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