Journalist Roxana Saberi to Speak on her Imprisonment in Iran
May 3 at Wellesley College

WELLESLEY, Mass. -- Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi had been living and working in Iran for six years when she was awoken one morning by four men who forced her from her Tehran apartment.

“They kept saying ‘Cooperate. Cooperate and you'll be fine. And if not, we'll have to take you to Evin prison,’” Saberi said in an interview on NPR. “I learned later that their definition of ‘cooperate’ was to confess that I was a spy for America, and specifically that the book that I was writing about Iranian society, they claimed, was a cover for spying for America.”

Saberi will discuss her subsequent imprisonment and original sentence of eight years in an Iranian prison during a lecture, “Between Two Worlds,” Monday, May 3, at 12:30 pm in Collins Cinema on the Wellesley College campus. The event, sponsored by the Madeleine Korbel Albright Institute for Global Affairs, is free and open to the public. Saberi will also sign copies of her book.

Saberi spent four months in the notorious Evin prison, which has held Iran’s most famous political prisoners and where torture is common. Following broad-based international pressure and negotiations by the Obama administration, Saberi was released on appeal on May 11, 2009.

Shirin Ebadi, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, called Saberi’s chronicle of her experiences “a powerful and deeply moving portrait," and that her book " shows how an innocent young woman got caught up in the current of political events and met individuals whose stories vividly depict human rights violations in Iran.”

Saberi has master’s degrees in broadcast journalism from Northwestern University and in international relations from the University of Cambridge. She has reported for NPR, BBC, ABC Radio, Feature Story News, PRI and Fox News.

Free parking is available in the Davis Parking Facility. Directions and a map of Wellesley College are online at www.wellesley.edu/Admin/travel.html .

Wellesley College has been a leader in liberal arts and the education of women for more than 130 years. The College's 500-acre campus near Boston is home to 2,300 undergraduate students from 50 states and more than 65 countries.

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