In March of 2009, Roxana Saberi's name became synonymous with press freedom after being arrested in Iran and held in Evin prison. New information is surfacing in the case of Roxana Saberi vs Iran, including familial ties to US Military Intelligence.

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“That upset me,“ says Mike Williams, resident of Fargo and former supporter of Roxana Saberi. Many in Fargo and sister city of Moorhead, MN share the same reaction, littering Fargo's newspaper, In-Forum, with comments of distaste and disappointment. Tiffany Reed, a journalism student at the University of Wisconsin and former Fargo resident, was among one of the most outspoken, taking Saberi's actions in Iran particularly personally as a journalist. “What she did taints the profession and gives foreign countries reasons to doubt foreign journalists. Being a journalist requires ethics and integrity. She showed none of those things.” She is talking about the classified document Saberi had taken and copied while working as a translator/editor for the Center of Strategic Research, a government think tank in Iran.

Mike and Tiffany are not alone in their strong feelings regarding the case of Roxana Saberi and Iran's Revolutionary Court. Blogs, comments to articles, and other journalists have echoed the same disapproval and disappointment in the lack of transparency – a phrase Secretary of State Hilary Clinton assigned as this case's catchphrase- shown by Saberi and the United States media.

“People are reacting emotionally and nationalism is backing them up. They are not looking at the facts as they have been revealed. They hear the word Iran and automatically believe they are wrong, we are right, and shame on them. I'm glad she is safe, but I think she is guilty as sin,“ says Jeff, who asked his last name be withheld, saying that Fargo was a ‘small town.'

“What the rest of the world doesn't realize is our community gave this family money in a fund that was set up for donations. For her to not acknowledge that, especially when the economy here isn't the best – it is a slap in the face. She has taken absolutely no responsibility for her actions at all. She hasn't said sorry. She hasn't admitted that this isn't an issue of freedom of press but an issue of someone living in Iran as an Iranian and not following the laws. We kept her family's secrets. We held vigils. We donated. This is really what we get from her?” Tara Wold, West Fargo, ND states.

This story has been presented by the international and western media as that of an innocent, hard-working, over-achieving victim, targeted and picked on by the Iranian government for being a hyphenated journalist, with one of those hyphens belonging to America, abandoning fair and balanced reporting for sensationalism and political headlines dealing with Iran. There is unreported side to this story, another face to the North Dakota beauty queen living in Iran, who despite reports of a Master's Degree from Tehran, had been told she would not be getting one, because she is a journalist.

FIRST INTERVIEW

Her judge, only named as Heidarifard, stated that her activities included: visiting government buildings, establishing contacts with government officials, gathering classified information, and relaying it to US intelligence services and that her activities were discovered by the counterespionage department of the Intelligence Ministry.

On May 28, 2009, Roxana Saberi gave her first US interview to Melissa Block on NPR, an organization that Saberi had freelanced for while living in Tehran. Saberi told Block seventeen days after her release from Ward 209 in Evin Prison, she was still unsure of why she was detained. Saberi stated, “The first charge against me was taking steps against national security, which can mean various things in Iran.”

Despite stating that she had no idea why she was detained and considered a threat to national security, Saberi remained elusive.

When Block pressed Saberi about her travel to Israel, an act so prohibited by the Iranian government it is stated on each Iranian passport, it was immediately dismissed by Saberi, stating that it wasn't a charge against her. She traveled to Turkey with her Iranian passport and from Turkey to Israel on her American Passport. When she was asked about reporting in Iran since 2006 after her press credentials were revoked, she commented, “As far as I know, it's not a charge under Iranian law to work without a press pass.” When asked if a press credential would have given her added protection, Saberi again answered, “This was also not a charge against me, so I can't say.” Saberi's press credentials were revoked by the Press Supervisory Board which operates under the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance.

The Press Supervisory Board is responsible for the approval of press credentials and licensing of publications as well as revoking press credentials, banning publications, and referring complaints to a special Press Court. During 2008, 17 Iranian bloggers were arrested or questioned. In an open letter to Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Hashemi-Shahrudi, Dr. Sadeq Zibakalam pleaded for the release of Saberi, stating that while she was working for the BBC in Tehran and had her press credentials revoked, she spoke with him about her concern on continuing to report in Iran. Zibakalam, often a source used in interviews by Saberi, told her if she couldn't get her press credentials renewed through traditional channels, he would attempt to find an intermediary for her in the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance.

Correspondents for foreign media that are based in Tehran have a history of facing deportation when reporting without permission, permit, or credential. Hasan Qashqavi, Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson, stated on March 3, 2009, “Her accreditation was over in 2006 after Iranian authorities revoked her press card.Her activities since 2006 were completely illegal and unauthorized.”

Tehran-based British journalist, Dan De Luce, reported for Britain's Guardian newspaper. In 2004, his press credentials were revoked and he was deported for visiting the earthquake-hit town of Bam without approval. In 2006, CNN stringer on the ground in Iran lost press accreditations when comments by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were inaccurately translated. In 2008, Hassan Fahs senior journalist for Al Arabiya and London-based Al-Hayat newspapers lost press accreditation after working in Tehran for eight years. In July of the same year, In July, AFP's deputy bureau chief in Tehran, Stuart Williams, was forced to leave after his visa did not get renewed.

June 2009 saw the highest restrictions placed on journalist in Iran, including a media blackout imposed on all foreign journalists during the civil unrest by Iran's Green Movement that took place after the presidential election. International news networks such as CNN, BBC, and Al-Jazeera relied on social networking sites for video and updates as the situation violently escalated. Many of those that stayed behind to report were imprisoned, including Iason Athanasiadis, former classmate of Saberi who also wrote an article on her for Harvard's Nieman Foundation.

Long time Tehran correspondent for Time and author Iranian-American Azadeh Moaveni answered Saberi's NPR interview with a column titled“Roxana Saberi and How Journalism Works in Iran”. Moaveni took particular issue with Saberi's trips to Israel and reporting without press credentials, emphasizing the personal sacrifices one must make reporting from a country like Iran. In the ten years that Moaveni has reported from Tehran, she has never been held by the government of Iran, despite two memoirs about her life in Tehran as a journalist and a book that she co-authored with Nobel Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, a woman often looked upon as an enemy of Iran because of her human rights work. Her book Honeymoon in Tehran: Two Years of Love and Danger in Iran documents the obligation of journalists to report regularly to ‘minders' from the Ministry of Islam and Culture Guidance, giving her minder the name of Mr. X.

The other issue central to this case is the confidential document Saberi had in her possession. While editing English grammar on articles for websites and journals for the government think tank Center for Strategic Research, a government report on the United States invasion of Iraq was copied and retained by Saberi. It was a report she was not translating nor editing. Since the report contained information that had been previously spoken about in public and held no classified stamp – as Saberi said she had heard such documents would have – she wanted it for ‘historical perspective.'

When pressed about working for a think tank for the Expediency Council, a revelation made by her lawyer, Saberi claims that her lawyer had only been telling half truths and that some of the research for the Center of Strategic Research was sent to the Expediency Council, but it was a government think tank. This, too, is inaccurate. Although it was previously run by the office of the Iranian President, since 1997 the Center of Strategic Research has been run by the Expediency Council, used primarily for research of a strategic nature. They do indeed have a website with reports translated in English, however, this website is also under the Expediency Council as apart of the Center of Strategic Research, not as a separate entity.

NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT THE PERSIAN CATS

With her boyfriend Bahman Ghobadi, Saberi co-scripted and executive produced No One Knows about the Persian Cats, a docu-fiction film about Tehran's underground music scene. Ghobadi, a man Saberi's family did not know about and questioned his intentions very publicly in the press, could not receive license to film this movie in Iran. They then took to the streets of Iran, scouting locations in two or three days, covertly filming in high speed over seventeen days so that they would not be found by the police. The crew was arrested twice during the shoot, but bribed the police for their freedom with DVDs of Ghobadi's previous released movies. Ghobadi claims that Saberi was the inspiration for the movie, which premiered at Cannes just days after Saberi's release. These previously unpublished photos show Ghobadi, Saberi and crew during one of their filming sessions underground in the streets of Iran.

Here are photos of Saberi and Ghobadi filming, unreleased by mainstream media.

Ghobadi also aided Saberi in her research for her book. In a letter he released internationally begging for her release, he stated, “I accompanied her, and thanks to my friends and contacts, I knocked on every door and was able to set up meetings with filmmakers, artists, sociologists, politicians, and others. I would go with her myself.” Saberi admits to meeting with several different groups and a variety of people in Iran for research for her book. It was reported that Saberi had in her possession copies of internal memos from a conservative political party. Al-Jazeera reported a week after Saberi's release a man had been taken into Iranian custody for providing Saberi with those memos. Although the man was photographed going into the police station, no further information about him or his release have been made public.

FAMILY TIES TO MILITARY INTELLIGENCE

When the media spoke about the family in this case, there were only references made to Saberi's parents – Reza and Akiko. This is not by accident. An article posted on April 22, 2009, on ValleyFaith.net, a faith-based information site for the Red River Valley where Saberi grew up in Fargo, North Dakota reveals that Saberi's parents, Reza and Akiko, asked the community for support for the Saberi family through means of donations and respectful letters written to editors of various news mediums. They also had one other request – do not mention Jasper Saberi in any communications – local, national, or international. Local media agreed, with comments mentioning Jasper Saberi immediately being deleted from conversation. It is now revealed, however, the request came with good reason. The year that Saberi took her much debated trip to Israel, her brother was serving in the US Military in Afghanistan.

In 1998, Jasper Saberi graduated with a B.S in Chemistry from North Dakota State University. That same semester, the Math and Science Department awarded him the American Institute of Chemists Foundation Outstanding Graduate in Chemistry Award. Roxana Saberi, along with her father Reza, attended the ceremony together. It was after graduation that he joined the military. According to military records, in August of 2007, Jasper Saberi was up for an officer promotion in Signals Intelligence Analysis; also known as MOS 98.

Among the rules and regulations of any individual placed within Signals

Intelligence Analysis, the ability to obtain top security clearance is included. It is also required of personnel that there be no immediate family in countries that are known to use physical or mental coercion against those who hold interest of the United States or family members of those individuals. Roxana Saberi lived in Iran beginning in 2003 until the end of her appeals in May of 2009, before and after the time of her brother's promotion in the military. Some of the duties of those that work in Signals Intelligence Analysis are establishing communication methods, analysis of intercepted messages and the preparing of technical and tactical intelligence reports. Jasper Saberi is now at an army stationed in Colorado.

SABERI'S REPORTING

NPR lists several articles written by Saberi during her time freelancing for them. The following statement is included on a search of Saberi's stories: “In addition, reports from Roxana Saberi have been included in NPR newscasts, which are not transcribed, as recently as January 2009″. Though Saberi at times uses the word writer and journalist to describe herself, in the interview that she gave NPR she stated: “I think most foreign journalists who are in Iran think about it sometimes, but I never really dwelt on it. I never really felt that they would have been monitoring me. Maybe when I was a journalist, it would have been more natural for them to.”

Saberi also stated that what she did by reporting in Iran without press credentials wasn't illegal, because she was not attending official or government meetings.The BBC felt different, terminating their work relationship with Saberi after her press credentials were revoked. If she wasn't going to government meetings, she was reporting on government activities, often times quoting members of Iran's parliament and other officials on such subjects as Iran's nuclear program, Iranian attitudes towards problems Lebanon faced in 2006, Iranian riots after gas-rationing programs, renewed talks between Iran and the US and Iran's relationship with Palestine. In many of Saberi's reports, she references government officials she had met and spoken with, contradicting earlier statements that her reporting was not illegal because they did not cover government affairs.

For IPS, a news agency rarely referenced when speaking about Saberi's career, she reported on Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Tajikistan. Her reports for IPS, the last filed in late 2007, include reporting on the financial connections between Iran and Hezbollah, Iran's relationship with Jaish al-Mahdi, and the rebuilding efforts in Lebanon. A complete list of articles written by Saberi can be found on the websites for BBC, NPR and ISP. When listing articles, it appears that the freeroxana.net website failed to list all work, leaving out the most controversial and reports from news companies other than NPR.

PERSONAL GAIN

On May 11, 2009, the day Roxana Saberi was released, listed literary agent Diana Finch as Saberi's media inquiry. Gone were the photos of Saberi's solemn face wearing a hijab, replaced instead with two modeling photos. The information was removed the next day, now showing Good PR as her media contact sans modeling pictures. According to her boyfriend, Bahman, Ghobadi, Saberi was seeking sponsorship for publication of a book in Iran. Diana Finch's name became associated with Saberi in the press first on March 2, 2009 in a press release by CPJ on Saberi's detainment. She appeared again on April 30, 2009, in a piece in Nichi Bei Times, a Japanese American Newspaper in which Finch had given the writer Heather Hiriuchi a previously unpublished piece written by Saberi on being a Japanese-American. Alexis Grant stated that she had helped run PR for the Free Roxana campaign and that agents wanted Saberi's memoir before she was free.

In fact, before she returned to Fargo, she was in contact with Washington attorney and literary agent Robert Barnett. On May 27, 2009, when Saberi met with Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, Barnett was seated in the office of that meeting. Barnet represented both of the Clintons in their respective book deals. He is also a friend of Hillary Clinton, being one of the first to tell her that the reports of Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky could be true and helping her prepare for her 2000 New York Senate race. On June 22, 2009 it was reported that HarperCollins will be publishing her book, recently reported to be titled “Between Two Worlds: My Life and Captivity in Iran.” Financial terms were not disclosed, however, it was disclosed that she had been represented by Robert Barnett, the same man that prepped Hillary Clinton for her debates with then Senator Barack Obama and got her an $8 million advance on her book.

Diana Finch, who had helped spread the news of Saberi's detainment, was now out of the picture. During her interviews with NPR, Voice of America and Good Morning America on May 28, 2009, just two weeks after her release, Saberi confirmed that she did plan to write a book about her detainment.

At the end of June 2009, it was announced that Saberi had signed with the Harry Walker Agency of New York. The Harry Walker Agency represents Hillary and Bill Clinton, Carl Rove, Dick Cheney and many others for public speaking engagements. Since then, she has spoken at the World Day of Action in Chicago, Society of Professional Journalists convention and at universities around the country.

CREDIBILITY COMES INTO QUESTION

It is now eight months after Roxana Saberi's arrest and five months after her release. Even though the world celebrated that the news of her release, many are now beginning to question her credibility. Some question Saberi's contradiction in stating that she had no idea why she was detained, but adamantly denied it was because of any of her own wrong-doing. Others question why is it that she had spent six years in Iran and spoke of it as if she had spent six weeks there instead. Websites began posting the Iranian Press Laws highlighting requirements of the press while others posted standards issued by the Iranian government by all reporters for foreign media.

Cases of individuals held for taking government documents in the United States were compared and contrasted to Saberi's sentencing in Iran, along with Israel's requirement that journalists submit two copies of their articles to the Military Censor Office and their imposed media blackouts and assaults on journalism. When she told NPR that her Farsi was not very good and that is why she requested a Koran in English, former classmates in Iran contradicted her statements. It was pointed out she did a Farsi-speaking interview with Voice of America and that part of the advice she has given journalist is to know the native language of the country for reporting because it creates trust between you and the country's people. When she told Voice of America she would have sung the Iranian National Anthem had she known it, one Iranian asked how she could have lived in Iran for six years, write a book about the people their and its culture, and not know the Iranian National Anthem?

One young Iranian asks in a YouTube video, “Why would anyone trust a book written about Iran by someone who acts like they are so naïve about a country they lived in for six years! I think she is hoping Americans are so clueless about life in Iran that she can fool them by being a victim!”

“For me it wasn't a matter of what she was working on. I simply do not care. There are too many inconsistencies from interview to interview and even within the same interview. What she did was foolish and the US media has made her a champion of free speech. She broke laws. My husband is in the military and he knows that when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Being an American grants you rights in America. We do not own the world. The position she put our country in politically, instead of giving speeches about freedom of speech, she should be making public apologies. My husband is a champion of freedom of speech. Roxana Saberi is a silly girl who thought only of herself and her career and put our country in the position to trade five Iranian intelligence officers held in Iran for her,” Jennifer, the wife of a soldier on his second tour of duty in Afghanistan, writes on her blog.

Recent criticism has been of the speech she gave at the AAJA convention workshop entitled Journalist in Jeopardy. During her video-taped address, she encouraged students who wanted to be freelancers to choose a country where there are fewer reporters so that coverage would be in more demand, and encouraged journalists to learn the local legal system and languages. Back in the Midwest, people are crticial of Saberi and her lack of comment on the arrest of the three Americans that crossed the Iranian border while hiking. Opinion columns and editorials have been surfacing in Minnesota newspapers, while in a Laguana Beach newspaper, Patrick Sandys, cousin of one of the hikers said that Saberi has been in contact with the family, stating: “She wasn't mistreated because the guards were basically afraid to hurt a westerner, or an American. This was a big deal and had some media attention so they didn't want to be the ones to injure that person.”

The media in the United States has reported the case against Roxana Saberi as that of a hard-working, over-achiever singled out by a repressive Islamic-regime for political gain. Other areas of the world have reported the case as an Iranian-American journalist reporting without press credentials in a country where those same press credentials can mean the difference between employment and deportation. Iran has reported the story as an Iranian who was questioning many government officials in her efforts to research a book, who broke it's country's laws, and had documents she was unauthorized to take. Since she was reporting to foreign media outlets, she must be a spy. The lack of real information released by both Iran and Roxana Saberi have created a case littered with half-truths, omissions, and doubt, questioning now not only the credibility of Iran, but of Saberi herself.

Authors Bio:
Carrie lives in Wisconsin where she is studying journalism.