The State Department today condemned Iran's detention of Washington scholar Haleh Esfandiari and journalist Parnaz Azima and acknowledged a growing problem with Tehran over its actions against U.S. and dual U.S.-Iranian citizens....Iran has been using U.S. meddling in its internal affairs by funding opposition groups as a pretext for cracking down much more broadly on anyone suspected of being allied with foreigners, especially America. This seems like an escalation in that crackdown.McCormack also said that both women symbolize the kind of "people-to-people" interaction the United States wants to encourage.
McCormack said arresting Esfandiari, co-director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center of Scholars, and confiscating the passport of Azima, a correspondent for U.S.-funded Radio Farda, offers "an insight into the nature of this regime." Esfandiari was detained Tuesday; Azima's passport was confiscated in January. Both women were in Iran visiting sick mothers.
In Tehran, Esfandiari's 93-year-old mother went to notorious Evin Prison to try to visit her daughter but was turned away, according to Esfandiari's husband, George Mason University professor Shaul Bakhash.
A hard line news agency in Iran charged Tuesday that Esfandiari was head of the Iran section of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which family members and the Woodrow Wilson Center said is not true.
--Garance Franke-Ruta
