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By admin, July 28, 2009 7:07 pm

Fears are mounting over the safety of hundreds of political inmates in Iran’s most notorious prison following the deaths of two prisoners detained in the recent post-election unrest…

Campaigners are also concerned for the safety of Kian Tajbakhsh, an American-Iranian scholar said to be under pressure to confess involvement in an alleged western plot to orchestrate the protests following Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election.

[Original Article]

Technorati Tags:
Iran Arrests, Iranian Election, Iranian elections, Kian Tajbakhsh, political inmates, prison death, detention, protests

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By admin, July 17, 2009 7:13 pm

The Associated Press just posted an article by Desmond Butler based on the statement by family and friends that was issued yesterday, as published here by ABC News, for example:

“WASHINGTON – The family and associates of an Iranian-American scholar under arrest in Iran say they are worried that the Islamic Republic is preparing to bring him before a show trial.

Iranian state-run Press TV has reported that Kian Tajbakhsh was arrested last week for working with a local employee of the British Embassy, Hossein Rassam, who also is being held in Tehran. Iran has accused other countries, especially the United States and Britain, of provoking unrest and protests that followed disputed June 12 presidential elections.

Family and friends of Tajbakhsh deny the charges and in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press by Pamela Kilpadi, a researcher who has been working on a book with Tajbakhsh, expressed fear he may be facing torture in Iranian captivity.

“We are concerned that Kian is being held in an attempt by the Iranian authorities to obtain forced statements from him to use in a televised show trial,” the statement says. “Such statements are repeatedly extracted under conditions of torture for the sole purpose of staging televised show trials in an attempt to deceive the Iranian public.”

The statement was also posted on a Web site the family and associates have organized to draw attention to his captivity.

Iran accuses Rassam of playing a “key role” in guiding British diplomats during the protests, according to the state-run TV. His arrest has sparked a showdown with European Union countries, which are insisting on his release.

The U.S. government has called Tajbakhsh’s arrest unjust and said he should be released.

Tajbakhsh, a social scientist and urban planner, spent four months in prison in 2007, charged along with three other Iranian-Americans with endangering national security.

[Link to article]
[also translated and republished in Persian media]

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By admin, July 15, 2009 10:56 am

The Columbia Spectator, the daily newspaper of Columbia University and Morningside Heights, had an article about the arrest of Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh, an alumnus of Columbia University.

A brief excerpt of the article is shown below:

Kian Tajbakhsh, a scholar who earned his Ph.D. in urban planning from Columbia, has been detained in Iran once again, according to news reports and a New School Web site. The U.S. Department of State and University President Lee Bollinger are calling for his release.

Sources told CNN that during the Thursday night arrest, security forces took his computer and ravaged his home.

“We’re deeply concerned [about] reports that an Iranian-American scholar has been unjustly detained in Iran,” State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.

“We share the concerns expressed by the U.S. Department of State about the reported arrest of Kian Tajbakhsh and many others in Iran,” Bollinger said in a statement issued to Spectator. “We concur in urging his release from detention and express our heartfelt support for his family, friends and colleagues who are anxious over his wellbeing.”

…

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By admin,

NPR aired an interview with Karim Sadjadpour (who analyzes Iranian affairs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) by Steve Inskeep on Morning Edition about the scholars and analysts held after the disputed election in Iran.

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By admin, July 13, 2009 5:29 pm

The Washington Post  had an article titled: ‘U.S. Worried about American scholar detained in Iran‘.

Below is an excerpt from that article:

Tajbakhsh, an Iranian American who holds a doctorate in urban planning from Columbia University, was arrested by Iranian authorities in May 2007, charged with spying and then released after more than four months in Tehran’s Evin prison.

It was not clear why Tajbakhsh was detained last week.

…

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By admin,

At the daily press briefing at the US State Department, the Department Spokesman was asked about Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh.
The transcript related to this questions is posted below.  (The full transcipt can be found here.)

Ian Kelly
Department Spokesman
Daily Press Briefing
Washington, DC

July 13, 2009

QUESTION: Do you have any update at all on the Iranian American scholar who was detained last week?

MR. KELLY: Yes, we’re deeply concerned of reports that an Iranian American scholar has been unjustly detained in Iran. Due to Privacy Act considerations, we’re not able to comment on the details of his arrest and imprisonment. It’s unfortunate that the Iranian Government is making choices that only serve to isolate Iran from the international community. We urge the Iranian authorities to immediately release Kian Tajbakhsh as well as return the passports of all Americans being kept in Iran on groundless charges.

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By admin, July 12, 2009 5:48 pm

Time/CNN posted an article written by Robin Wright on Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh’s arrest in Tehran.

The Time/CNN article is posted below:

Iran’s political upheaval has claimed its first American, with the arrest on July 9 of Kian Tajbakhsh, an Iranian American living in Tehran, according to an Iranian human-rights group and family friends.

As part of the latest security sweep designed to end nationwide protests against the disputed June 12 presidential election, Tajbakhsh was picked up from his home late Thursday following a day of renewed demonstrations, according to Hadi Ghaemi of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. His computer equipment was confiscated and his home ransacked, Ghaemi said. 

Tajbakhsh, 47, was not involved in the protests, the sources said, but the Columbia University graduate had been among four dual citizens arrested in 2007 on charges of trying to foment a “velvet revolution” against the Islamic regime. He spent four months in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison before his release. Tajbakhsh, an urban-planning expert, taught urban policy at the New School for Social Research in New York City from 1994 until 2001. Before his arrest in 2007, he had served as an adviser to the Iranian Ministry of Health and been a consultant for George Soros’ Open Society Institute.

The regime has repeatedly charged that the recent unrest is a plot by foreign powers, particularly Britain, to orchestrate an uprising against the theocracy. On the eve of the pivotal vote, Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei expressed concern about a “soft” or “velvet” revolution, the term originally used to describe the 1989 overthrow of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. 

The head of the country’s Revolutionary Guards political division also charged that supporters of opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi were part of the plot. “Any kind of velvet revolution will not be successful in Iran,” he warned in a comment on the website of the Guards, the élite wing of Iran’s military created to protect the revolution.

The detention is being widely condemned. In Washington, Haleh Esfandiari, who also was detained in Iran in 2007, said the regime’s “paranoia regarding a so-called velvet revolution planned from the outside and assisted from the inside has gotten out of control.”

Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said Iran’s Intelligence Ministry “keeps trying to prove the unprovable.” Esfandiari was released after a show of public pressure by then Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as well as a letter to Khamenei from former Congressman Lee Hamilton, the president of the Wilson Center and co-chair of both the Iraq Study Group and the 9/11 Commission. 

After his release from prison, Tajbakhsh opted to stay and work in Iran, where his family lives, and deliberately avoided politics, friends say. “Kian knew his activities were being closely monitored by the government ever since his release from prison in 2007, so he was very careful not to give them any pretext to re-arrest him,” said Karim Sadjadpour, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington and a close friend who has talked with his family.

The regime may be trying to implicate the U.S. in the unrest, analysts say. “What’s significant is the fact that he was taken by the Revolutionary Guards and that he is, as far as we know, the first U.S. citizen to be detained. I think it’s very plausible that Iran’s hard-liners are trying to draw the United States into this,” Sadjadpour said.

The Iranian human-rights group said Tajbakhsh joins more than 240 other prominent Iranian lawyers, activists, journalists, professors, human-rights defenders and students detained without warrants and taken to undisclosed locations since the unrest began almost a month ago. “These detainees are being held in incommunicado detention and the authorities have refused to provide any information regarding charges against them or their condition to their families,” Ghaemi said in a statement.

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By admin,

The Huffington Post posted an article written by Desmond Butler on Dr. Kian Tajbakhsh’s arrest in Tehran.

The Huffington Post article is posted below:

An Iranian-American scholar whom Iran once accused of fomenting political unrest has been arrested by authorities there for the second time in two years, the State Department and the man’s family said Friday.

Security forces arrested Kian Tajbakhsh late Thursday, a family member told The Associated Press. The relative was in contact with Tajbakhsh’s wife, who witnessed the arrest in Tehran.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters that the United States was aware of the arrest and was checking into the circumstances. He provided no further detail.

There was no comment from Iranian authorities. The relative spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because of concern that public comments could aggravate Tajbakhsh’s situation.

The arrest comes amid high political tension in Iran. Tehran has seen massive demonstrations following disputed June 12 presidential elections.

Opposition protests erupted again on Thursday in the capital, with marchers chanting “death to the dictator.” In some places, clashes erupted as police fired tear gas and charged demonstrators with batons.

Tajbakhsh, a social scientist and urban planner, spent four months in prison in 2007 on charges of endangering national security. He denied the allegations.

In the latest incident, two people who identified themselves as Iranian security officials arrived at his residence in Tehran late Thursday, Tajbakhsh’s family said. The officials questioned him and his wife and searched the residence for three hours, before taking him away along with two computers and other items.

The family said that they have no information about where Tajbakhsh was taken.

Tajbakhsh was held by authorities in 2007 after being charged along with three other Iranian-Americans with endangering national security. Then, he was a consultant with the Soros Foundation’s Open Society Institute, an organization that Iran has accused of trying to undermine the Iranian government.

Tajbakhsh’s family says that he ended his association with the Open Society Institute after his earlier imprisonment.

Iran’s arrest of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi in January on spying charges sparked tensions at a time that U.S. President Barack Obama was looking for openings to negotiate on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Saberi was released in May ahead of the elections and returned to the United States.