The father of Iranian-US student Esha Momeni, in detention in Tehran facing security charges, said Friday he disapproved of his daughter’s “illegal activities” but pleaded with the authorities to show mercy.
“I had no idea about the activities of my daughter but now I have realised that her work was illegal,” Gholam Reza Momeni was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.
“Because of our anger over our daughter’s illegal activities... her mother and I did not want to visit her,” Momeni said.
According to the Iranian judiciary, Momeni is accused of security offences and her case is currently under preliminary investigation.
She is being held at Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.
“Esha Momeni has been accused (of charges) but I hope that the Islamic republic’s authorities judge her case appropriately with mercy,” her father said.
Momeni, a graduate student at the Northridge campus of California State University, had travelled to Iran to carry out research for her thesis on women’s rights, her lawyer Mohammad Ali Dadkhah told AFP last month, adding that she holds both Iranian and US nationality.
He said she was arrested on October 15 for her involvement with a women’s rights equality campaign.
Over the past year Iran has arrested several women who backed a One-Million-Signature campaign, launched two years ago to call for changes to Iranian laws deemed discriminatory to women.
The United States has asked Switzerland, which represents US interests in Tehran, to find out more about the case against Momeni.
Iran does not recognise dual nationality and has in past said the arrest of US-Iranian citizens is an internal matter.
In May 2007, US-Iranian academics Haleh Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh along with California-based peace activist Ali Shakeri were arrested and held for more than 100 days, also on suspicion of causing harm to national security.
