A graduate student with American and Iranian citizenship who was arrested in Tehran last month was released on Monday after paying $200,000 in bail, her father told the Los Angeles Times, and is due in court today for a hearing of her case.
Esha Momeni, a master’s student at California State University at Northridge, was arrested on October 15 after an alleged traffic violation, and had been held since then in solitary confinement in a political ward at Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison.
Her father, Reza Momeni, told the Times that although his daughter was now free on bail, which he had financed by using the deed to his family’s Tehran apartment as collateral, she had been told she “may not leave the country and must still stand before a political tribunal to face charges of ‘acting against national security’ and ‘propagating against the system.’”
Ms. Momeni, a graphic artist and photographer, had traveled to Tehran to videotape interviews with female activists in connection with her master’s thesis, on the Iranian women’s movement.
Iran’s official news agency quoted Mr. Momeni in an interview last week as saying that he was “unaware of my daughter’s activities, but now I know that they were illegal.” In the interview, Mr. Momeni denied reports that he and his wife had been prevented from seeing their daughter. “When I realized that my daughter was involved in illegal activities, I and my wife refused to meet with her because we were angry about what she had done,” he was quoted saying.
