Washington - A Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty correspondent
held in Iran for eight months was released and has left Iran, the
radio organization reported Tuesday.
Parnaz Azima is the second of four high profile Iranian-Americans
confined by Iran to be released. The US State Department has lodged
continuing protests over their detention and confinement.
Azima, a dual national of Iran and the US, had been prevented from
leaving the country since January, when her passport was confiscated
while she was visiting her ill mother. She was allowed to collect her
Iranian passport on September 4, but was still prevented from leaving
until this week.
'For eight long months, Parnaz's colleagues at RFE/RL have been
waiting for the day when she will be a free person again. We are
happy Parnaz can finally be reunited with her family and see her
newborn grandchild for the first time,' RFE/RL President Jeff Gedmin
said.
But he noted his concern that the criminal charges against her had
not been lifted. She was charged by Iran in May with acting against
national security and spreading propaganda about Iran through her
work for the Persian broadcasting service, Radio Farda, which is
funded jointly by RFE/RL and Voice of America, two US government-
funded stations.
Azima has rejected the charges. She has reported extensively on
modern Iran for RFE/RL since the late 1990s.
Iranian-US national Haleh Esfandiari, who works for the
Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars,
was jailed in May on alleged espionage charges and returned to the US
earlier this month.
Last week, the Iranian judiciary said that Iranian-American
scholar Kian Tajbakhsh would be released on bail 'within the next few
days.' He is being held in Evin prison in Tehran, and bail was set at
1 billion rials (107,300 dollars).
Tajbakhsh, a sociologist and urban planning consultant with George
Soros' Open Society Institute in the US, has been jailed for more
than four months for having links to US think-tanks that Tehran
accuses of trying to topple the Islamic system.
There have been no announcements on the fate of Ali Shakeri, the
fourth Iranian-American being held and kept from leaving the country.
Shakeri is a peace activist and board member at the University of
California.
Azima has reported extensively on modern Iranian history, Persian
literature, the status of women, ethnic and religious minorities in
Iran and other topics.
The value of her mother's house helped back her 550,000-dollar
bail.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
USA
Your Talkback on this Story