[FREE IRAN Project] In The Spirit Of Cyrus The Great

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Berkeley Lecturer Held in Secret in Iran Jail
Iran Emrouz, News Report,
Translated by Behrouz Saba, Oct 16, 2003

Dariush Zahedi, an Iranian-born political scientist and lecturer at UC Berkeley, has been in secret, solitary confinement in Tehran's Evin prison on espionage charges after arriving in his native country around late June of this year. What makes Zahedi's fate particularly worrisome is the utter silence that has surrounded his case for more than three months. Zahra Kazemi, an Iranian-born naturalized Canadian journalist was killed from a blow to the head during interrogation after she was arrested in Tehran for taking pictures at Evin prison in July. Zahedi may end up similarly without prompt attention to his case from the U.S. government and the international community.

Iran Emrouz (Iran Today), an authoritative news website published in Tehran, carried an exclusive article about Zahedi on Oct. 15. Zahedi's colleagues at Berkeley, according to the piece, grew concerned when he did not show up for work at the beginning of the academic year and found out that he had traveled to Iran in late spring at a time of widespread student demonstrations against the ruling clergy.

The article cites Mohsen Armin, the Deputy Chief of the Iranian Parliament's National Security Committee, as the first person in Iran to have mentioned a Berkeley academician in Iranian government custody without revealing his name. The website's reporter was able to identify Zahedi only after contacting officials at UC Berkeley.

Iran Emrouz believes that Zahedi's relatives in Iran and in this country have been silenced by the Iranian government's threats of subjecting him to even harsher treatment should his case become publicly known by them.

According to Armin, Iran's Information Ministry investigated the spying charges against Zahedi and found them to be groundless. This finding was not accepted by the Attorney General and the Revolutionary Court of Tehran which have referred the case to a judicial branch of the military intelligence.

Zahedi was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University's Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and taught at the University of Southern California and Santa Clara University before going to Berkeley. His book, "The Iranian Revolution Then and Now: Indicators of Regime Instability" (Westview Press, 2000), is a scholarly inquiry into the causes and eventual outcomes of the Islamic revolution. He also served as the director of the West Coast operations for the American Iranian Council (AIC) which is chaired by Cyrus Vance. Carter's Secretary of State, Vance resigned over the aborted secret mission to rescue American hostages in Iran. AIC describes itself a nonprofit educational organization devoted to improving relationships between the U.S. and Iran.

Zahedi's biography does not read any differently from those of many other academicians in this country. His associations with major American universities and a well-known former official of the U.S. government, however, serve as ample "evidence" for Iranian prosecutors loyal to the conservative clergy to detain and punish him as a spy. In truth, the mullahs find educated, articulate, moderate Iranians like Zahedi as the worst threat to their theocracy. They know that such voices are increasingly appealing to a broad cross section of young Iranians and will sooner or later end their hold on power.

Zahedi urged American engagement rather than confrontation in its dealings with Iran. An op-ed piece he co-wrote for Newsday in April reads in part, "Instead of threatening, bullying or chastising Iran for developing a nuclear weapons program, the United States should adopt a variation of the North Korean model and seek to engage the Islamic Republic in multilateral talks."

The mullahs clearly prefer American threats and bullying which help them shore up their power among the Iranian masses against the "Great Satan."



http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=634f44fd300de9501188062125f29aff
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