American journalist Roxana Saberi, who was charged with espionageagainst Iran, has been convicted and condemned to eight years inprison, after being tried behind closed doors. The father of the dualnational Saberi, who confirmed the verdict, also says that she was"tricked" into confessing.
The Iranian court sentenced American-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi to eight years in prison.
The31-year-old Saberi, who is a dual American-Iranian citizen, hasreported for National Public Radio and the British BroadcastingCorporation and was arrested in January. She was charged with "spyingfor the United States," and put on trial Monday. The U.S. StateDepartment has rejected the spy charges as "baseless." U.S. Secretaryof State Hillary Clinton said Saturday she was disappointed by thesentencing and said the U.S. government would continue to raiseconcerns to the Iranian government.
Saberi's father Reza Sabericonfirmed the sentence against his daughter, and argued that she hadbeen "tricked" into confessing to what he called, "bogus charges." Herattorney says that he will appeal.
Reza Moini, of Paris-basedReporters Without Borders, says that his organization is protestingwhat amounts to a "sham" trial and that the charges don't evencorrespond with Iran's own penal code.
Moini says that thecondemnation doesn't correspond with the definition of espionage inIran's penal code, articles 501 and 502, and the charge of espionagedoesn't fit Saberi's case, either. But, what's important, he argues,is that the court tried her behind closed doors so that she couldn'tdefend herself properly. The Islamic Republic, he says, has been usingdual national journalists or scholars for six or seven years, now, toput pressure on other countries, especially the U.S.
Iran expertAli Nourizadeh who runs the Center for Arab and Iranian Studies inLondon says that Iran has misread signals from the Obama administrationthat it will ignore Tehran's human rights practices, detaining Saberiand other dual nationals so as to win the release of Iranians it claimsthe U.S. arrested unfairly in Kurdistan, last year.
"The Iranianregime, at the moment, though the Americans invited them for talks, andAmericans actually showed some leniency towards them by not mentioningthe human rights issue in their statement," he said. "So, therefore,the Iranians took the message wrongly and they believe if they push andpush, they can get their men released, those who were arrested in Erbiland Sulaimaniyah."
Nourizadeh insists that Saberi's case is political and that the Iranian government has no credible case against her.
"Roxanadid not do anything wrong. She just did her job and she was doing itfor several years and there was no complaint," he said. "But, this timethey come just with the excuse that she didn't extend her license.Okay, she did not extend her license, and that would be punishable by afine or three months imprisonment, not eight years."
The courtruling comes after recent diplomatic overtures by U.S. President BarackObama to renew dialogue with Iran and after European Union foreignpolicy head Javier Solana invited Iran to a round table conference todiscuss its controversial nuclear program.