Columbia faculty have turned to the White House for support in gaining Kian Tajbakhsh’s release from Iranian prison.
Kian Tajbakhsh, who earned his Ph.D. from Columbia, was supposed to teach at Columbia’s School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation this year, but was arrested last summer in Iran during the aftermath of the elections. He faces multiple charges of spying and being a threat to the national government.
In December, both the University and the White House called for his release, and a letter lobbying for his release was circulated among faculty.
And recently, a number of University faculty members sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking “about the status and well being of Kian Tajbakhsh,” according to an e-mail sent to Spectator Tuesday morning from Columbia spokesperson Tanya Domi.
According to Domi, the faculty who sent the Jan. 11 letter include Dean John Coatsworth of the School of International and Public Affairs, Dean Nicholas Lemann of the Journalism School, Peter Awn, dean of the School of General Studies and director of SIPA’s Middle East Institute, Elazar Barkan, director of the Center for the Study of Human Rights, and Gary Sick, a senior research scholar at the Middle East Institute.
The letter begins, “As members of the faculty at Columbia University, we wish to express our deep concerns for the well-being of Kian Tajbakhsh.” After citing earlier statements Clinton has made on Tajbakhsh’s behalf, it asks her to “do everything possible to obtain Mr. Tajbakhsh’s immediate release.”
The letter mentions the benefits a statement from Clinton had for Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari when he was in prison.
“We note that your statement on behalf of Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari made a significant, improved difference in the treatment of Mr. Bahari by prison guards, according to a ’60 Minutes’ interview of him broadcast in November 2009,” it states.
The letter also denounces Iran’s “pattern of harassment of scholars,” including Mohammad Maleki, former chancellor of the University of Tehran.
“Attacking and imprisoning scholars is a destructive and pernicious act that does not address the problems confronting the Islamic Republic of Iran, now or in the future,” it says.
Full text of the letter below:
January 11, 2010
The Honorable Hillary R. Clinton
Secretary of State
U.S. State Department
Washington, D.C.
Dear Secretary Clinton,
As members of the faculty at Columbia University, we wish to express our deep concerns for the well-being of Kian Tajbakhsh, who has been imprisoned in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison after being found guilty of"political crimes” by an Iranian court on October 20, 2009. Mr. Tajbakhsh was subsequently sentenced to 15 years in prison for supporting the Iranian uprising against the government in the aftermath of the disputed election last summer. He appealed this sentence, only to face additional charges of spying which were announced on November 23, 2009 in Iran’s Revolutionary Court.
We gratefully acknowledge your earlier statements made on Mr. Tajbakhsh’s behalf. But given the chaotic and dangerous political and civil climate in Iran today, we respectfully request that you do everything possible to obtain Mr. Tajbakhsh’s immediate release.
We note that your statement on behalf of Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari made a significant, improved difference in the treatment of Mr. Bahari by prison guards according to a “60 Minutes” interview of him broadcast in November 2009.
Mr. Tajbakhsh, who eamed a doctorate from Columbia in urban studies, was providing nonpolitical urban technical advice as a consultant with explicit permission from the Iranian government. He was scheduled to assume duties as an associate professor of urban studies last fall at Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.
The Iranian government has established a pattern of harassment of scholars–most recently imprisoning the former chancellor of Tehran University, according to Scholars at Risk, who have also highlighted Mr. Tajbakhsh’s case. His latest arrest was the second time he has been detained in Iran during the past two years. In 2007, Kian, along with Haleh Esfandiari, a Middle East expert with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, was arrested and jailed in the Evin Prison. Attacking and imprisoning scholars is a destructive and pernicious act that does not address the problems confronting the Islamic Republic of Iran, now or in the future.
In closing, we ask you to do everything within your powers to alleviate Mr. Tajbakhsh’s plight and gain his immediate release.
Sincerely,
Peter Awn
Elazar Barkan
Robert Barnett
Caroline Bettinger-Lopez
John C. Coatsworth
Hamid Dabashi
Tanya L. Domi
Yasmine Ergas
Peter Juviler
Ira Katznelson
Nicholas Lemann
Mahmood Mamdani
J. Paul Martin
Lincoln Mitchell
Andrew J. Nathan
Anne Nelson
Catharine Theimer Nepomnyashchy
Dirk Salomons
Gary Sick
Robert Thurman
