Radio Farda broadcaster Parnaz Azima, who has been trapped in Iran since January, is now facing a charge of acting against Iran's national security by working for the US-funded broadcaster. Azima is already facing charges of working with Radio Farda and spreading propaganda against the Iranian state.
Azima and her lawyer, Mohammad Hossein Aqasi, have rejected the charges as baseless.
Aqasi told Radio Farda that authorities have given Azima no indication of when she might be allowed to leave. "Officials who decide about the case — apart from judiciary officials — have emphasised that she should stay in Iran for now. The reason they mention is her special situation in international relations — in fact, that means ties between Iran and the US," Aqasi said.
Azima is a dual Iranian-US national who works as a correspondent for the US government-funded, Persian-language Radio Farda. Authorities have not specified the material they consider to be propaganda. In January, Iranian authorities confiscated Azima’s Iranian passport upon her arrival at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport on a trip to see her ailing mother, effectively barring her from leaving the country. During the past several months, Revolutionary Court officials had repeatedly summoned Azima for interrogation, although she has not been detained.
In an August 27 telephone interview with Radio Farda, Azima described her situation as "unbearable." She said, "This uncertain situation is very difficult to deal with. I left all my life abroad to come and visit my ailing mother, and now I feel my personal life is falling apart. My grandchild will be born soon in the US, and I wish I could be there to experience it. I was under medical treatment before coming to Iran, and that has now been interrupted."
Based in Prague, Czech Republic, Azima has worked at Radio Farda since 1998, reporting on Iranian affairs and covering sensitive topics such as the 1998 killings of dissidents and intellectuals for which Iranian authorities were implicated. Radio Farda broadcasts out of Prague, and is jointly run by the US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America.
