Tehran charges 3 detained U.S. citizens as spies

Three Iranian Americans, including U.S. academic Haleh Esfandiari, have been charged with espionage and endangering national security, Iran’s judiciary spokesman said Tuesday.

The charges, denied by relatives and colleagues of the three, were another example of Iran’s stepped-up accusations that the U.S. is trying to use internal critics to destabilize the government.

“Esfandiari has been formally charged with endangering national security through propaganda against the system and espionage for foreigners.... The complainant is the Intelligence Ministry,” judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi told reporters.

Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, has been held at Tehran’s Evin prison since early May, and allegations against her had been reported previously.

Esfandiari’s husband, Shaul Bakhash, said the charges were “totally without foundation.”

In Washington, the State Department said it had no information about formal charges being lodged but urged the detainees’ release.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the treatment of Esfandiari and the others “a perversion of the rule of law.”

“These are people who are there trying to make life better in Iran,” Rice told reporters en route to Berlin. “These are not people engaged in espionage.”

She also said the detentions were “wholly unconnected” to the U.S. military detention of five men Washington claims are Iranian intelligence agents in Iraq.

Lee H. Hamilton, president of the Wilson center, said Esfandiari’s detention was “an affront to the rule of law and common decency.”

“The Wilson center’s message to the Iranian government is simple: Let Haleh go,” he said in a statement.

Jamshidi said the same charges had been lodged against Kian Tajbakhsh, an urban planning consultant with George Soros’ Open Society Institute, and journalist Parnaz Azima. No trial date has been announced, and Jamshidi said the investigation against all three was continuing.

Tuesday’s announcement was the first time the government confirmed the arrest of Tajbakhsh, who also has worked for the World Bank and was believed to have been taken into custody around May 11, according to the Open Society Institute. Azima, who works for U.S.-funded Radio Farda, was detained but released and barred from leaving the country.

Laura Silber, a spokeswoman for the New York-based Open Society Institute, said the charges against Tajbakhsh “are completely without merit.”

The 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. The ministry alleges that the Open Society Institute, which seeks to promote democracy, was part of the conspiracy.

The Wilson center and the Open Society Institute deny the allegations.