TEHRAN, Iran — The lawyer for an Iranian-American academic being held by Tehran on charges of endangering national security said Thursday that she has been prevented from representing her client by Iranian authorities.
Shirin Ebadi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, said she went to the Revolutionary Court in Tehran on Wednesday and was blocked from meeting the official investigating Haleh Esfandiari’s case.
“Unfortunately, like the previous time on Monday, not only did they refuse to accept my legal representation, they didn’t even allow me to go inside the building to see the investigating magistrate,” Ebadi said in a statement.
“My client is in solitary confinement at Evin prison (in Tehran). She is banned from meeting people, is still deprived of her citizenship rights and is not allowed to have a lawyer,” she said.
Iran’s judiciary spokesman, Ali Reza Jamshidi, said Tuesday that nothing was preventing Ebadi from meeting with Esfandiari, the director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars who was jailed in Iran in early May.
Esfandiari is one of four Iranian-Americans who have been charged by Tehran with endangering national security. Iran has stepped up its accusations against the U.S. as the conflict between the two countries over Tehran’s nuclear program and suspected activities in Iraq has escalated.
Family members, colleagues and employers of the four have denied the allegations.
The Iranian Intelligence Ministry has accused Esfandiari and her organization of trying to set up networks of Iranians with the ultimate goal of creating a “soft revolution” in Iran, along the lines of the revolutions that ended communist rule in eastern Europe.
Jamshidi said Tuesday a judge would complete his preliminary investigation into the charges against the four detained Iranian-Americans “within the next two or three days.”
The others are Kian Tajbakhsh, an urban planning consultant with George Soros’ Open Society Institute; Parnaz Azima, a journalist who works for the U.S.-funded Radio Farda; and Ali Shakeri, a founding board member of the University of California, Irvine, Center for Citizen Peacebuilding.
Azima is out of jail on bail but not allowed to leave the country; the other three remain in custody.
