Iranian authorities have allowed an Iranian-American journalist for the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) to leave Iran, after keeping her in the country for months, the broadcaster said Tuesday.
Prague-based Parnaz Azima, who works for Radio Farda, RFE/RL's Persian service operated jointly with the Voice of America radio broadcaster, arrived in Tehran on January 25 to visit her sick mother. Authorities seized her Iranian passport, and in May she was charged with spreading propaganda against the Iranian state.
The move comes a day after another Iranian-American, the academic Haleh Esfandiari, left Tehran following her release from jail in August on bail. Two other Iranian-American academics, Ali Shakeri Kian Tajbaksh are still being held in Iran.
Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi welcomed the decisions to allow Esfandiari and Azima to leave Iran. "We're glad that they have been allowed to leave the country but that should have happened [straight away]. Holding them in prison or inside the country is against Iranian laws," she told Radio Farda.
"I am the lawyer for both Haleh Esfandiari and Azima and I have to say that from the beginning the cases that were created for these two were against [Iranian laws]. They haven't committed any crime; they were innocent and it's natural for them to leave the country, especially given the fact that they [are free] on heavy bail and when the date of the trial is set they have to return to Iran."
Azima had earlier been released on bail but was unable to leave the country because the authorities were keeping her passport. RFE/RL reported that she has now collected her passport and has told colleagues that she will be leaving Iran in the near future.
RFE/RL is a private, nonprofit corporation that receives funding from the US government. It was established in 1949 to spread pro-Western news and promote democratic values and institutions in countries behind the Iron Curtain. The station moved its headquarters to Prague from Munich, Germany, in 1995, after the collapse of communism. It has broadcast in 28 languages to 20 countries, including Iran and Iraq since 1998, and Afghanistan from 2002.
