When the journalist Roxana Saberi was first arrested in Iran, her family was told it was for buying a bottle of wine (this is an act banned under the Islamic law). That happened on January 2009, but later Iranian prosecutors accused her of working as a journalist without a valid press card. A strange twist in all the initial charges changed on 8 April, when she was accused of spying for the US. Ms. Saberi has received a conviction and sentence of eight years on suspicion of espionage.
According to the human rights group Amnesty International, Ms. Saberi was only able to contact her family twice between the months of January and March.
She told them she was not being physically harmed but was finding life difficult in Evin prison, near Tehran.
The Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said about the case that Saberi was being held in “an arbitrary and terribly unfair, unprecedented, unjustified way, she should be able to come home.”
Roxana Saberi was born in the US and grew up in Fargo – North Dakota. Her father Reza Saberi was born in Iran, and her mother Akiko is from Japan. She was chosen Miss North Dakota in 1997 and was among the top 10 finalists in Miss America 1998. On her speech as Miss North Dakota she said that her goal was to encourage other people to appreciate cultural differences. This idea become her ambition to eventually led her into journalism to help people to appreciate their differences.
She graduated in mass communication and French from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. Later she get her master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Northwestern University in Chicago and another master’s degree in international relations from Cambridge University in the UK.
Before her press credentials were revoked, Ms. Saberi was working in Iran as a freelance journalist for various news organizations including the BBC.
Iranian Award-winning director of Cannes and Berlin film festivals Bahman Ghobadi, said that Ms. Saberi was a victim of Iran’s “political games”. He asked to be allowed to testify at her appeal, saying that “she is innocent and guiltless” of the charges. He is concert about Ms. Saberi’s health and depressed conditions. Mr
Ghobadi said to the Iranian authorities “I beg you to let her go! I beg you not to throw her in the midst of your political games! She is too weak and too pure to take part in your games,” he wrote.
An Iranian judiciary spokesman said Ms. Saberi’s sentence might be reconsidered on appeal. In the mean time the winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize Shirin Ebadi, will join the defense team of Ms. Saberi.
