Iran's American Prisoner: The Case of Kian Tajbakhsh (Continued with 15 Years in Jail)

Iran’s American Detainee: The Case of Kian Tajbakhsh
Iran: How the Regime Constructed the “Velvet Revolution”

In early August, we featured the case of Iranian-American scholar Kian Tajbakhsh, arrested at his home in Tehran a few weeks earlier. Within days of the report, Tajbakhsh was amongst the defendants in the first Tehran trial, held up as a prime agent in the "velvet revolution".

Last week Tajbakhsh was sentenced to 15 years in prison. In contrast to the attention given to previous US citizens held by Iran, such as journalist Roxana Saberi, but in parallel to the case of the three American "hikers" detained this summer and still held, Tajbakhsh's fate has received little attention. There was a perfunctory State Department declaration of concern, but the US Government apparently is making its efforts for Tajbakhsh's release behind the scenes and very quietly.

Karim Sadjadpour provides further information and thoughts in this article from Foreign Policy:

My friend, the Iranian-American scholar Kian Tajbakhsh, was recently  sentenced to 15 years in Tehran's Evin prison. For those familiar with the ways of authoritarian regimes, the charges against him will ring familiar: espionage, cooperating with an enemy government, and endangering national security.

Since his arrest last July -- he was accused of helping to plan the post-election uprisings -- Kian's family and friends have made countless appeals for clemency to the Iranian government, written letters to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pleading his innocence, and signed dozens of petitions. All to no avail.

I've come now to realize that the regime probably thinks we're obtuse. Indeed, they know better than anyone that Kian is an innocent man. As the expression goes in Persian, "da'va sar-e een neest," i.e. that's not what this fight is about.

Allow me to explain.

Kian was first arrested in 2007. His crime was having previously worked as a consultant for the Open Society Institute (OSI), a U.S.-based NGO. Though his work was nonpolitical, focused on educational and developmental projects, and had received the explicit consent of the Iranian government, he was accused of trying to foment a "velvet revolution" on behalf of U.S.
intelligence agencies.

While in solitary confinement in Evin, he was subjected to countless hours of interrogation. Had the authorities found any evidence for the above charges during all this, Kian certainly would not have been freed after four months.

He was permitted to leave the country after his release, but chose to remain in Tehran with his wife and newborn daughter. He reassured his worried family and friends that he was now an open book to the Iranian government and there could be no further rationale or pretext to detain him.

Over the last two years, he regularly met with his minder from the Ministry of Intelligence. Aware of the fact that the government was monitoring all of his activities and communications -- including e-mail and telephone conversations -- he kept a very low profile and exhibited
great caution.

During this period, Kian and I regularly exchanged e-mails. He urged me to read his favorite book, Polish writer Czeslaw Milosz's brilliant novel, The Captive Mind, which examines the moral and intellectual conflicts faced by men and women living under totalitarianism of the left or right.

On the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Shah we debated the successes and failures of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and he told me he believed that the former outweigh the latter. Hardly the worldview of a subversive counterrevolutionary.

Even amid the massive popular uprisings following the tainted June 2009 presidential elections, Kian remained cautious and unmoved, steering way clear of any political activity and continuing to meet with his minder.

On June 14, two days after the election, he wrote me an email saying, "I'm keeping my head down ... I have nothing to add to all the reports that are here." In the same e-mail, Kian even expressed skepticism about the opposition's accusations of electoral fraud, saying he had seen "little hard evidence."

A few weeks later he was arrested, bafflingly, on charges of helping to
plan the post-election unrest.

Read rest of article....

Israel-Palestine: The US Mistake on the Goldstone Report

LATEST Palestine: Pressure on Abbas to Resign in Goldstone Report Furour
Israel-Palestine: More Clashes in Jerusalem
Israel-Palestine Inside Line: Hamas & Syria Criticise Abbas; Israel VP Cancels Britain Trip Over “War Crimes” Fears

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As EA's Ali Yenidunya updates on the latest fall-out from the deferred UN vote on the Goldstone Report on the Gaza War, Marc Lynch, in his blog for Foreign Policy, raises questions about the Obama Administration's decision to block the report:

I'm still trying to figure out the thinking behind the Obama administration's rapid moves to block the Goldstone report on the Gaza war.  Without even getting into the moral issues involved or the accuracy of the report, the most likely tactical considerations behind the administration's decision seem short-sighted.  Its move likely responded to the intense public and private Israeli campaign against the report, and probably aimed at winning back some positive relations with the Israelis and maintaining momentum on the peace process.

But if the administration's hope was that killing the report would make the issue quietly go away while winning some political capital with the Israelis, it is likely to be disappointed.  Quite the contrary:  the report is becoming a major political issue in the Arab world, badly damaging the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority, while Obama seems to be getting little credit from Israeli public opinion or the Israeli government.

Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority are already paying a heavy price for succumbing to reported American pressure to drop the report.  It isn't just Hamas criticism, though there's plenty of that.  This has rapidly become a leading issue in the Palestinian and Arab media, and is shaping up into a profound setback for the already weak PA leadership.  Virtually every sector of Palestinian opinion -- from Hamas to Fatah, from Gaza to the West Bank -- has united in harsh criticism of the move.  Even Mohammed Dahlan -- Dahlan! -- is positioning himself in opposition, showing where he thinks the political points are to be scored.  The Economics Minister in Fayyad's government Bassem al-Khoury reportedly submitted his resignation in protest.   Given his key role in pushing the so-called "economic peace" that Israeli and American officials are so keen upon, perhaps that will get more attention than the massive, broad-based criticism across the rest of Palestinian society.

There seems to be little question that Abbas's decision to go along with American pressure will have a significant impact on the popularity and legitimacy of the PA.  He is already backpedaling in the face of the intense public backlash, announcing the formation of a committee to look into the "circumstances surrounding the issue" (gee, wonder what he'll find when he investigates his own decision?), but it's probably too late.  Whatever gains made by Fatah after its Bethlehem conference and by Fayyad with the announcement of his agenda for a Palestinian state are likely to be washed away in this deluge.  The credibility of the Hamas narrative about the PA's collaboration with Israel and unrepresentative nature will be strongly enhanced. And it will not help Salam Fayyad establish authority that he has been fingered by some sources as the person directly responsible for the decision.

Why was the PA leadership put in this untenable situation?  The Obama team has consistently identified building Palestinian Authority legitimacy and capacity as a key part of its strategy.  Did nobody consider the impact that such an important symbolic issue as the perceived suppression of the Goldstone report would have on this supposedly crucial dimension of the strategy?

At the wider Arab level, the American stance on the Goldstone report has galvanized doubts about the credibility of Obama's outreach to the Muslim world and claims to genuine change.  The skeptics who demanded deeds to match words are having a field day.  As much as the inability to prevail in the battle over the settlements hurt Obama's credibility with the Arab world, at least he got some credit for trying, for prioritizing the issue and paying some costs to keep at it.  But the Goldstone report decision looks to most of the Arab public as a straightforward capitulation to Israel and abdication of any claims to the moral high ground. It will further undermine the Cairo promises, which look ever more distant.

Meanwhile, I have searched in vain for signs that the Israeli public or hawkish commentariat have given the Obama administration any credit for its efforts.  Israeli commentators seem to have simply taken the American protection for granted, or grudgingly acknowledged it in passing, without revising their views of Obama. The scornful, dismissive tone of the hawks towards Obama continues, while doves largely ignore it or disagree.  If there's been a concerted effort to leverage the decision to improve his standing with the Israeli leadership or public, I haven't seen it.

I can understand the decision to sacrifice the Goldstone inquiry into the Gaza war to tactical or strategic considerations, whether or not I agree with the call.  It wouldn't be the first time.  But I would hope that such a decision would have seriously anticipated the implications for the legitimacy and efficacy of the Palestinian Authority, for Obama's credibility among Arab and Muslim audiences, or for how to leverage it into real gains with the Israeli public.