By DPA
Washington : For four months, Iranian-American scholar Haleh Esfandiari fought off despair in solitary confinement in an Iranian jail. Yet does not “bear any grudges” toward her captors and continues to advocate US talks with the Iranian regime.
At most, Esfandiari expressed “disappointment” that she had not been able to convince Iran of the good intentions of think tanks such as the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, of which she is the Middle East director.
Esfandiari was allowed to return home last week after spending nearly four months in jail and another four months being prevented from leaving the country. She was one of three Iranian-Americans scholars held on espionage charges – one remains in jail – while a fourth was not arrested but is still prevented from leaving the country.
Since her arrest in May, Esfandiari said her “only link to the outside world” was through telephone calls about every second day with her 93-year-old mother, and newspapers she was given to read.
Esfandiari never even met her own lawyer, Shirin Ebadi – a Nobel Peace Prize winner – who was not allowed to enter the prison.
“The isolation was the hardest to bear,” she said at a press conference at the Wilson Centre. “To be cut off completely from the outside world was very tough.”
To keep her mind off the situation, she kept a strict schedule of exercise and reading, and never thought about her life back in the US.
“I had blocked thinking about my husband, my daughter, my grandchildren, the house. I blocked all that out because that would have led me to despair,” she said.
“I believe that really my self-imposed daily routine and the faith, my confidence that I would eventually be released is what helped me survive this ordeal.”
But Esfandiari insists she was not in any way mistreated. In fact, the interrogations at Evin prison and during the four months before she was arrested were very civil and polite, she said.
“Prison being prison is never pleasant. But I was not physically mistreated and I never feared that I would be mistreated physically,” she said. “They treated me with utmost respect.”
Esfandiari said she was quizzed continuously on the practices and actions of the Wilson Centre and other US think tanks, which Iran accuses of being behind efforts to overthrow the regime – along the lines of the “velvet” and “orange” revolutions of Georgia and the Ukraine.
She would explain over and over what the Wilson Centre does, how it operates, what its goals are – all publicly available information. She portrayed her interrogations as a scholarly exchange – not aggressive or even accusatory – adding that as far as she could tell there was little other motive for her imprisonment.
Esfandiari says she was never told of the espionage charges and that even an appearance on state television, which Iran portrayed as a confession, was not at all coerced: the Iranians asked if she would go on television, and she accepted.
“I said, sure – the Wilson Centre doesn’t have anything to hide,” she said. “Our job is very transparent so whatever I’m telling you now in this room when you question me, I’m willing to say publicly.”
Now freed, Esfandiari plans to go back to her job as Middle East director at the Wilson Centre, promoting cultural and political exchanges with Iran and other countries in the Gulf and continuing to advocate dialogue between governments.
“I always have and will advocate talks between governments, be it the Iranian government and the United States or any other government,” she said. “I think governments should talk to each other.”
It appeared that her greatest disappointment over the ordeal was simply the lack of understanding of the aims of think tanks such as the Wilson Centre, which she characterises as promoting understanding through exchanges and debate – not overthrowing governments.
“I feel a great sense of disappointment,” she said. “It is as if all of your efforts all of these years were not appreciated and were misunderstood.”
In short, Esfandiari’s time in captivity remains a mystery.
“I was never told that there would be a court case or charges against me,” she said. “I really never understood why I was stopped from leaving Iran or why I was arrested.”