VZCZCXRO9090
PP RUEHDIR
DE RUEHC #8161 1380532
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 172216Z MAY 07
FM SECSTATE WASHDC
TO RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO 8271
RUEHDIR/IRAN RPO DUBAI 0003

UNCLAS STATE 068161 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
C O R R E C T I V E  C O P Y (SENSITIVE CAPTION ADDED) 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM IR PREL PGOV KDEM
SUBJECT: DEMARCHE REQUEST ON ARRESTED IRANIAN-AMERICAN 
ACADEMIC HALEH ESFANDIARI 
 
¶1. (SBU) ACTION REQUEST: The Department requests that post 
ask the GOJ to engage the Iranian government on the case of 
Iranian-American academic Haleh Esfandiari, Director of the 
Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International 
Center for Scholars in Washington.  Dr. Esfandiari was 
arrested by Iranian authorities in Tehran on May 8 and is 
being held in Iran's notorious Evin Prison.  The Department 
understands that former Deputy Under Secretary of State 
Strobe Talbott raised Esfandiari's case with LDP officials in 
Tokyo on May 17, and that he plans to raise the issue again 
with PM Abe on May 18.  The Department supports Talbott's 
request for GOJ assistance and requests that post pass the 
following background information to the MOFA for their use in 
prepping PM Abe and for engaging the Iranians on our behalf. 
 
¶2. (U) BACKGROUND: Dr. Esfandiari went to Tehran in late 
December 2006 to visit her 93-year old mother.  On December 
30, on her way to the airport to return to Washington, the 
taxi in which Dr. Esfandiari was riding was stopped by three 
masked, knife-wielding men, who took her baggage and handbag, 
including her Iranian and U.S. passports. 
 
-- Four days later, when applying for replacement Iranian 
travel documents at the passport office, Dr. Esfandiari was 
invited to an interview by a Ministry of Intelligence 
official, which began a series of interrogations that 
stretched over the next six weeks.  Her interrogations took 
place at two different locations, sometimes continuing for as 
many as four days a week, sometimes stretching across seven 
and eight hours per day.  Although Dr. Esfandiari returned to 
her mother's house every evening, the interrogations - which 
totaled more than 50 hours - were unpleasant and not without 
intimidation and threat. 
 
-- The questioning focused on the Middle East Program at the 
Wilson Center.  Dr. Esfandiari answered all questions; when 
she could not recall the details of programs stretching back 
five and even eight years, the staff at the Wilson Center 
provided her with this information.  According to the Wilson 
Center, all of their activities are on the public record, and 
the interrogators could have obtained virtually all of the 
information they sought through the Wilson Center website 
(www.wilsoncenter.org) and through Wilson Center 
publications.  Repeatedly during the interrogations, Dr. 
Esfandiari was pressured to make "confessions" or to 
implicate the Wilson Center in activities in which it had no 
part, which she refused to do. 
 
-- The interrogations stopped on February 14.  Except for one 
threatening phone call on February 17, Dr. Esfandiari heard 
nothing from her interrogators for the next 10 weeks, until 
receiving another phone call in early May asking her to 
"cooperate."  She interpreted this as another demand for a 
false confession, which she refused to give.  On May 7, 
Iranian officials again summoned Dr. Esfandiari to the 
Ministry of Intelligence.  When she arrived for her 
appointment on May 8, officials put her into a car and took 
her to Evin Prison, where she was allowed one phone call to 
her mother. 
 
-- This harassment of a 67-year old U.S. citizen and 
well-respected scholar in both Iran and the United States is 
unwarranted.  Dr. Esfandiari has been prevented from seeing 
her doctors in the United States by the withholding of her 
passport for the past four and a half months, and by her more 
recent incarceration in Evin prison.  Despite numerous 
efforts since December 30 to secure permission for her to 
leave Iran, Dr. Esfandiari has been unable to obtain any 
assistance from the Iranian government, which has not made 
formal charges against her. 
RICE