The Iranian academic who was being held prisoner in Iran on espionage charges, and to whom Columbia University President Lee Bollinger offered a visiting professorship upon his release, has been released on bail, under the condition that he remain in Iran.
According to The New York Times, Kian Tajbakhsh, a social scientist and urban planner, was released on bail of just under $107,000 on Sept. 20 in Tehran, Iran, after 131 days in solitary confinement for "security-related charges." Tajbakhsh is a dual citizen of the United States and Iran.
Arien Mack, a professor of psychology at The New School and a close friend of Tajbakhsh, said she thought the espionage charge was absurd.
"It was so clear, his passion about Iran: He gave up a good job at The New School to move back to Iran despite the fact that his mother was here," Mack said. "He'd gone to college here; he'd gone to graduate school here."
Bollinger petitioned Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to release Tajbakhsh when Ahmadinejad spoke at Columbia. Bollinger also extended an invitation to Tajbakhsh to serve as a visiting professor at Columbia upon his release.
Tanya Domi, a senior public affairs officer for international affairs at Columbia University, said in an e-mail that because Tajbakhsh remains in Iran, they have not been able to communicate with him about the offer.
"This case signals an unwelcome development and further impedes academic exchange between Iran and the U.S.," said Hossein Kamaly, a professor at Columbia and an acquaintance of Tajbakhsh.
Mack said she thought Tajbakhsh's detainment was a way for Iran to stifle academia.
"I think they are all new ways of scaring the intellectual population in Iran to keep them from doing anything, saying anything ... It puts the fear of God into people. That's why I think they do it," Mack said.
Tajbakhsh, who received his doctorate from Columbia, is currently a consultant for the Open Society Institute in New York City. He has taught at American and Iranian universities, including The New School, where he taught Urban Planning, according to the Times.
Tajbakhsh is one of many journalists, writers and activists who have been imprisoned in past months. According to The New York Times, another Iranian-American scholar, Haleh Esfandiari, 67, was arrested and imprisoned in Evin Prison on similar charges while visiting her infirm mother in Iran. Esfandiari was allowed to return to the U.S. in early September after her mother handed over the deed to her apartment, valued at $324,000. Ali Shakeri, a real-estate agent and mortgage broker from California remains in Evin Prison, the Times said.
Esfandiari said in a PBS interview that she knew Tajbakhsh was in the same prison because she had seen a guard carrying English books and had asked whose they were.
"And this was the beginning of borrowing books from Mr. Tajbakhsh," said Esfandiari in the interview. "On one occasion, I sent him some fruit with the permission of the prison authorities."
Tajbakhsh was released in the ninth month of his wife's pregnancy, and the baby was born shortly after his release, said Mack. "I think he's going to stay put [in Iran] for awhile."
"I think he's an extraordinary person. He's dedicated and tremendously passionate about his own country. There's no way he would do anything that would be considered subversion," Mack said. "He was doing research; he was not doing subversive work."
Jane C. Timm is a staff writer. E-mail her at news@nyunews.com.
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