The case of Roxana Saberi

 

The parents of Roxana Saberi, the freelance journalist sentenced to eights years for espionage in Tehran, have visited their daughter in the Iranian capital for the first time since the verdict was dished out at the weekend. The 31 year old was originally arrested for buying a bottle of wine. Her subsequent one day trial puts yet more strain on a crucial few months for US-Iran relations, but President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has pressed for an early appeal trial. There’s a Facebook group and website, a Twitter account and a petition to sign, but as Nicholas Kristof points out,

At the end of the day, a Web campaign may not get her freed any time soon. But it may improve her treatment and reduce the likelihood of abusive treatment in prison. And word may reach her, which may lift her spirits just a bit to know that she’s not forgotten. link

I’ve put together a dipity timeline of the case of Saberi which I’ll keep updated with items from the Frontline Newswire, that feeds into the right hand column on the Frontline Club news page, as and when the story develops.