Roxana Saberi

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Roxana Saberi (2010)

Roxana Saberi ( Persian رکسانا صابری; Born April 26, 1977 in Belleville , New Jersey ) is a journalist with US and Iranian citizenship. On April 18, 2009, Saberi was sentenced to eight years in prison in Iran for espionage . In May 2009, the sentence was reduced to two years, suspended, and Saberi released.

Life

The daughter of a father of Iranian descent and a mother of Japanese descent was born in New Jersey and grew up in Fargo , North Dakota . In 1997 she was elected Miss North Dakota , the following year she achieved a place in the top ten in the Miss America election . At Northwestern University in Chicago , she completed her journalism training with the master on. In 2003 she went to Tehran to study Iranian Studies . She also worked as a freelance journalist, primarily for the American National Public Radio (NPR) and the British broadcaster BBC . In 2006 her accreditation was withdrawn, but she continued to work as a reporter from time to time without any objections from the authorities. At the same time she wrote a book about her experiences in Iran.

She had planned to return to the USA at the end of 2009.

Arrest and trial

Saberi was arrested in Iran on January 31, 2009 and charged with first illegally buying alcohol, then continuing to work as a journalist after confiscating her press card, and finally with espionage. Apparently Saberi got hold of a secret report from a strategic research department of the Iranian presidential office about the war in Iraq, which she did not use for her work. Saberi made a confession, which she revoked at the trial when she said she had been deceived. However, the judge in charge found that she had collected information and documents in Iran and passed them on to the American secret service. On April 18, 2009, Saberi was sentenced to eight years in prison. Her attorney announced an appeal, endorsed by the Supreme Judicial Authority of Iran, set for May 10, 2009. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had indirectly criticized the process and called on the judiciary to ensure a fair trial. Amnesty International campaigned for Saberi with an Urgent Action .

release

After being sentenced, Saberi went on a hunger strike in prison . Also due to an international media campaign and the intervention of US President Barack Obama , the appeals court overturned the eight-year prison sentence for espionage on May 11, 2009 and changed the sentence to probation in two years because “Saberi no longer cooperates with a hostile state being charged ”; she was then released. Justice spokesman Ali Resa Jamschidi assessed Saberi's release as an "Iranian mercy" because the journalist had cooperated with the authorities and showed remorse . Saberi returned to the United States in mid-May 2009, eleven days after her release from Tehran's Ewin Prison. She thanked US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for their support.

After the release

After her release, she wrote a book about her experience. This was published in March 2010; the German translation was published in March 2011. From 2013 to 2016 she worked as a correspondent for Al Jazeera America and from 2016 as a freelancer for CBS in the United States before becoming a London-based correspondent for CBS in 2018.

Works

Web links

Commons : Roxana Saberi  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Saberi evidently convicted of a secret report ( memento of January 24, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) AFP of May 13, 2009
  2. ^ Fridtjof Küchemann: Roxana Saberi and the secret Iraq report. In: FAZ. May 13, 2009, accessed on February 28, 2020 : “Another Saberi's lawyer, Abdolsamad Khoramshahi, said her sentence had been reduced because she had failed to use the secret document about the war in Iraq. Otherwise she would have threatened ten years in prison. "
  3. ↑ Freed US-Iranian journalist Saberi leaves country. In: France May 24, 15, 2009, accessed on February 28, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Courier dated May 9, 2009  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.kurier.at
  5. ↑ Probation instead of imprisonment. Roxana Saberi is free. In: n-tv. May 11, 2009, archived from the original ; accessed on February 26, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Spiegel online from May 11, 2009
  7. ↑ Focus online from May 11, 2009
  8. ↑ Saberi returned to the USA after being released from Iran . Agence France-Presse at google.com, May 23, 2009
  9. ↑ 3sat.de ( Kulturzeit broadcast on March 9, 2011)
  10. ↑ https://www.linkedin.com/in/roxanasaberi (accessed November 28, 2018)
  11. ↑ https://www.cbsnews.com/team/roxana-saberi/ (accessed November 28, 2018)
personal data
SURNAME Saberi, Roxana
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Iranian-American journalist
DATE OF BIRTH April 26, 1977
PLACE OF BIRTH Belleville , New Jersey, United States