Word: saberi
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When Roxana Saberi packed her bags for Iran in 2003, she could not have anticipated that part of her six-year stay would include five months in the country's most notorious prison. When her press credentials were suddenly revoked in 2006 (after years of filing reports for foreign news organizations), she chose to stay in the country she had grown to love and work on a book instead. Then on Jan. 31, 2009, four men forced her from her home, accused her of being a spy and placed her in solitary confinement in Evin Prison. She was heavily interrogated...
...days in Tehran's Evin prison and have twice met with Swiss diplomats tasked with negotiating their release. The charges, which carry the death penalty, come amid stalled talks with the U.S. over Iran's controversial nuclear program, just months after the espionage conviction of American-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi was overturned after heavy diplomatic pressure...
...late April the Swiss ambassador to Tehran arrived in Washington with a secret message for the small team in charge of Barack Obama's outreach to Iran. The rulers in Tehran were getting ready to release the American journalist Roxana Saberi, who had been charged with spying. But they wanted the U.S. to know that if she was freed, it would not be a concession; it would be a test. For more than two years, U.S. forces in Iraq had been holding three Iranian diplomats they believed were members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, linked to terrorist attacks...
...delicate moment. Obama had personally launched a goodwill campaign to improve relations with Iran and restart negotiations over its nuclear program. But Iran was stalling on Obama's offer of nuclear talks, and now the U.S. team, led by veteran diplomat Dennis Ross, had to figure out where the Saberi gambit fit in. Her potential release could be a sign that moderates in Tehran were on the rise, in which case the U.S. should reciprocate. Or it could be a ploy by hard-liners in Tehran, who oppose détente with the West, to get the three Iranians released...
...policy chief, that Iran would accept the invitation to talks. But then Jalili stalled, they say. By the end of the month, the U.S. and Europe concluded that Iran would not make a move before its presidential elections. Reflecting American distrust, the U.S. decided it would not reciprocate when Saberi was released on May 11; according to a senior Administration official, there has so far been no change in the status of the three Iranians held by American forces in Iraq, though the U.S. is considering releasing them to the Iraqis. (See pictures of Obama behind the scenes in Iraq...