Evangeline
May 11th 2009, 05:31 PM
She is an Iranian American and worked in Iran for 6 years reporting news for NPR, BBC and ABC. She was arrested and held for 4 months. And now she's been freed! She'll be leaving Tehran to come home to the USA soon.
This is great news while we are dealing with such strained relations with Iran.
http://images.publicradio.org/content/2009/03/03/20090303_saberi_33.jpg
NPR.org, May 11, 2009 · American freelance journalist Roxana Saberi was released from an Iranian prison Monday and reunited with her parents after her sentence for espionage was reduced on appeal, ending a four-month ordeal for the reporter that strained relations between Tehran and Washington.
Iranian authorities released Saberi to the custody of her father nearly a month after she was convicted of spying for the United States.
"I'm very happy that she is free. Roxana is in good condition," Saberi's father, Reza Saberi, said after her release.
Banned From Reporting
Saberi's eight-year sentence, issued by an Iranian court after a secretive one-day trial on April 13, was reduced to a suspended two-year term, according to her attorney, Abdolsamad Khorramshahi. As a condition of her release from Tehran's Evin prison, she will be banned from reporting from Iran for five years.
President Obama welcomed Iran's "humanitarian gesture" in releasing Saberi, who holds dual American-Iranian citizenship.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who had taken a personal interest in Saberi's case, said she was pleased to hear she was free. "Obviously, we continue to take issue with the charges against her and the verdicts rendered, but we are very heartened that she has been released and wish her and her family all of the very best," Clinton said.
Saberi "is currently with her family and will be leaving Tehran to return to the United States in the coming days," she said.
On Sunday, Saberi's attorney said a judge had agreed to free the journalist after a five-hour closed-door appeals hearing.
Saberi was charged with "cooperating with a hostile state." She had been reporting from Iran for the past six years but had allowed her press credentials to expire, her father said shortly after her Jan. 31 arrest.
The case has made for tense diplomatic relations between Washington and Tehran as President Obama tries to engage America's longtime adversary. The White House had called the charges against Saberi baseless and demanded that she be freed.
Soon after she was convicted, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suggested the sentence could be reversed.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103999681
This is great news while we are dealing with such strained relations with Iran.
http://images.publicradio.org/content/2009/03/03/20090303_saberi_33.jpg
NPR.org, May 11, 2009 · American freelance journalist Roxana Saberi was released from an Iranian prison Monday and reunited with her parents after her sentence for espionage was reduced on appeal, ending a four-month ordeal for the reporter that strained relations between Tehran and Washington.
Iranian authorities released Saberi to the custody of her father nearly a month after she was convicted of spying for the United States.
"I'm very happy that she is free. Roxana is in good condition," Saberi's father, Reza Saberi, said after her release.
Banned From Reporting
Saberi's eight-year sentence, issued by an Iranian court after a secretive one-day trial on April 13, was reduced to a suspended two-year term, according to her attorney, Abdolsamad Khorramshahi. As a condition of her release from Tehran's Evin prison, she will be banned from reporting from Iran for five years.
President Obama welcomed Iran's "humanitarian gesture" in releasing Saberi, who holds dual American-Iranian citizenship.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who had taken a personal interest in Saberi's case, said she was pleased to hear she was free. "Obviously, we continue to take issue with the charges against her and the verdicts rendered, but we are very heartened that she has been released and wish her and her family all of the very best," Clinton said.
Saberi "is currently with her family and will be leaving Tehran to return to the United States in the coming days," she said.
On Sunday, Saberi's attorney said a judge had agreed to free the journalist after a five-hour closed-door appeals hearing.
Saberi was charged with "cooperating with a hostile state." She had been reporting from Iran for the past six years but had allowed her press credentials to expire, her father said shortly after her Jan. 31 arrest.
The case has made for tense diplomatic relations between Washington and Tehran as President Obama tries to engage America's longtime adversary. The White House had called the charges against Saberi baseless and demanded that she be freed.
Soon after she was convicted, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suggested the sentence could be reversed.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103999681