MSNBC: Roxana Saberi, "Yes, I'm a U.S. spy."

[vaberella]

I hope my post is not misleading. I don't want it to be, but I wanted to make a point with it, that was mentioned by my sister when we heard Roxana Saberi speak in a clip on MSNBC a few moments ago. Saberi stated that she lied to the Iranian government that she was a US spy because she because--at least her family would be notified. She was threatened by the Iranian officials to confess or she would die without her family where she was.

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/05/28/world/worldwatch/entry5046301.shtml

There is an a link to the NPR interview as well with this cbsnews link.

On the rumored charges of being arrested for buying alcohol:

"I was allowed to call my parents about 11 days , after I told my interrogators, 'Please let me call my father, at least, to let him know that I'm alive.' And they forced me to tell him a lie — to tell him that I didn't know where I was and that I had been arrested for alcohol, but these were not true."

On initially making a false confession:

"I thought, well, if something happens to me, my family doesn't know where I am, maybe they would never find out. And so I made a false confession and I said, 'Yes, I'm a U.S. spy.'"

On why she actually liked her eight-year sentence:

"Actually, I thanked God, because I knew that if I had been handed only one to two years, that there wouldn't be such an international outcry. But the eight years seemed so ridiculous."

Now I don't want to take away from the importance of her ordeal. However, I do want to draw a parallel to what we're seeing in her case. Also this is not to say the detainees are innocents who are forced to say they are working against our government. But I wanted to show how torture can be looked at. From what we can see, she was in no way physically tortured but the mental torture and the fear that was instilled in her by those around her, making her think something could happen to her and her family would never know forced her to a confession that was false.

Now we have this idea that "enhanced interrogations techniques" or torture methods, actually work by the right. After hearing Saberi's statements could they still make the same argument?

Anything could come out of their mouths if a person needs something to stop or to ensure something. I mean this is known to happen to people who are being questioned by the police that they at times confess to things that are later found to be false. And this is because they aren't allowed to sleep, they are not given water, or denied something and put into a position where the only peace they'll get is to say whatever the captor wants.

[alcibiades_mystery]

1. My guess: She actually was a US spy

Her description of the trip to Israel is completely implausible. It's likely she was a US spy, but with a very good and effective cover for getting out of jams.

[Tempest]

2. According to her lawyer she had classified documents on Iran with her

I don't expect the next American caught spying in the Middle East will be let go so casually as her.

[MADem]

3. She questions the classified nature of the material she possessed.

On the charges that she was carrying a classified document:

"The Iranian government claimed that I had a classified document, but I don't think it was classified. The document did not have a classified stamp on it, which I've heard such documents are supposed to have, and it was not clearly identifiable as classified. It was an old document from 2002 and it didn't contain any information that had not been stated publicly several times before."

[Tempest]

4. Her lawyer made the claim after she was released and out of Iran

So we have the Iranians and her lawyer on one side and her on the other.

[MADem]

5. Her lawyer was Persian, yes?

Par for the course.

[Tempest]

6. He's a human rights lawyer retained by her family

So no, not par for the course.

Though Saberi currently has a lawyer, Saberi's family has retained Ebadi, a Nobel laureate who specializes in defending political prisoners in Iran, to take on the case.

[MADem]

9. But that's not the lawyer who's making the claim, now, is it?

Saleh Nikbakht gave details about the charges against Saberi two days after an appeal court cut her eight-year jail sentence for spying to a two-year suspended term and she walked free after more than three months in Tehran's Evin jail.

He said the 32-year-old freelance reporter had copied the report, which was prepared by a strategic research body at the Iranian president's office ahead of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. But she never used the information, he said.

Saberi's release removed a snag in U.S. President Barack Obama's attempts to improve U.S.-Iranian relations after three decades of mutual mistrust. On Monday, Obama welcomed Iran's move to free Saberi as a "humanitarian gesture."

....Her other lawyer, Abdolsamad Khorramshahi, earlier said that Saberi in an appeal hearing on Sunday had "accepted she had made a mistake and got access to documents she should not have. But there was no transfer of any classified information."



http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090513/us_nm/us_iran_usa_journalist_24

I have had personal experience with the Persian Justice System--though not under the present regime. It can be a very capricious thing.

[mitchum]

8. I think that you are absolutely correct

[Aloha Spirit]

7. That Iran believed her reminds me also of Bush believing Hussein when he bluffed about WMDs

or any supposed foreign policy maker who believes the words of a threatened target.

[damntexdem]

10. Endangering true journalists around the world for years to come.

True, they're already endangered; but this will only heighten it.