Close Encounters of the Health Care Kind

.
Nothing like a medical emergency to focus the mind and the attention. Once the dust settles and the hours drag on, and you view life through a hospital window and the limited television selection [no MSNBC!] of a hospital room, you learn to appreciate the blessings and ignore the rest for a while.

But there's no ignoring the health care system these days, and we're hearing snatches of real life about it everywhere. From the caller to NPR describing how her insurance will go from some $800 a month to over $1400 if she renews. To the couple in the ER worrying in whispers whether there'll be coverage. To...well, you and I know the examples are legion.

And it's almost inconceivable that the insiders in Washington could be so oblivious or deliberately disregarding of what's going on for their fellow citizens, their constituents, their voters every single day.

Maybe you Senators and former Senators and lobbyists and industry corporatists aren't talking to us...but we're talking to each other, and we're mad as hell that we're being ignored.

You remember us...We, the people?

Or as my dear friend Kathy shared with me from the letter she sent the White House [and the

Roxana Speaks

.
From Tehran to Fargo, the joy at the release of Roxana Saberi from prison and espionage charges is heartfelt.

Roxana herself expressed gratitude to all those who supported her release, while new details of the case against her became public.

In her hometown of Fargo, neighbors and mentors spoke of their happiness after the long months of concern and fear for her safety.

Fargo will be waiting to welcome Roxana home... and will give her the space and place to regroup after her tumultuous spring. As our Red River settles back into its banks after the flood, we know, too, Roxana will find a wellspring of comfort in her home community.
.
crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette

Roxana Now Free

.
Roxana Saberi is now reunited with her parents, Reza and Akiko, and is free from prison in Iran. I'll leave to the politicians...here and in Iran...to declaim who did what to assure her release.

Lesson learned: reasoned diplomacy can play a powerful role in positive outcomes.

Just added this comment over at FDL, where I've been crossposting about Roxana:

Thanks everyone for taking the time to read my posts about Roxana...lots of excitement around Fargo as you can imagine. Statements are already out by Senator Dorgan, Sec. of State Clinton. And hometown neighbors talking to talk radio. And each other!

Fargo, North Dakota's a beautiful place to come home to...the sandbagging's just about cleaned up...the Fargo Marathon Saturday was a big success...and the welcome home for Roxana will be exuberant.

But as we are reminded, journalists in Iran...and North Korea...still languish in prison for simply doing their job. These are the heroes of free speech and reporters of history-as-it-is-made, and we owe all of them a great debt.

Well-cushioned press princelings and princesses who preen in Teh Village and NYC would do well to take greater note.

Roxana's Release Imminent

.
Roxana Saberi's prison sentence has been suspended, says the news report read on the Imus Show this morning. Report is that she will be released today.

UPDATE: Espionage charges dropped: US and Iran not at war, said the appeals court so charge did not apply. Sentence suspended.

msnbc now reporting Roxana has been released.

.
MSNBC on-scene reporter saying this release is about internal Iranian politics and the upcoming election. And the expectation that Ahmedinejad's letter will benefit him among the young electorate in Iran.

Roxana Saberi Has Appealed

.
For Roxana Saberi and her parents, this was no ordinary Mother's Day. Roxana's appeal hearing in Iran has taken place and a ruling is expected next week.

Roxana's attorney expressed cautious optimism. This case has prompted weighing-in from the highest level in Iran. And reporting from around the globe, including China News:

...the letter [from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] asked Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi to "personally make sure that the accused will enjoy all freedom and legal rights to defend (herself) against the charges and no small rights (of her) will be violated."


While Iran adapts a soft position with respect to the "amendments" on the issued sentence, the country's officials are sensitive about the foreign attempts to influence the country's authority over the decisions underway.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi has asked the United States not to interfere with this issue, saying the case is a strictly domestic matter and other countries should end hyping the issue.

We wish the best of outcomes for Roxana and her parents through the painstaking path of the Iranian legal system.
.

Roxana Saberi: Not Graduation Day

.
Today is graduation day at Concordia College, across the river in Moorhead from the community of Fargo where Roxana Saberi grew up.

The featured speaker is not Roxana Saberi.

Oh, she was supposed to be. Roxana was a graduate of Concordia, she was supposed to wrap up her own studies and living in Tehran and be back home in Fargo to take part in Concordia's graduation.

Yesterday, leaders of the community, members of many media organizations, former teachers and professors, and friends and neighbors of the community that she called home gathered at the Veterans Memorial Bridge to show their support for Roxana as she remains within prison walls in Iran.

The bridge's central memorial area is a fitting location, the bridge between the two communities that influenced her school years. Yet it's not an easy place to get to...there's no handy parking on a bridge, no easy access for the disabled. It requires an effort.

Just as it requires an effort for a woman like Roxana, herself a bridge between two cultures, holding dual citizenship here in her American birthplace and in the ancestral home country of her father.

She made the effort to use her skillset to communicate to people. She reported for the BBC, NPR and other media about the people and life in Iran. We surmise she did exactly the same there, tried to share understanding about the people and life in America.

Now her telling has been interrupted by the swift authoritarian actions of the Iranian judicial system. What the final chapter will be we do not yet know.

We only know that the community that is her American hometowns very much wants her here again, soon, to tell it.
.
crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette

Roxana Saberi: Context from a Fellow Journalist Held Captive in Iran

.

For Camelia Entekhabifard, the experience of Roxana is deja vu all over again. Moments ago on MSNBC, correspondent Richard Engel brought his Iranian colleague to discuss the context of Roxana Saberi's imprisonment.

Camilia told of being held prisoner and subjected to harsh treatment so that she would confess to whatever those holding her wanted to hear. She spoke about demands to collaborate with the Iranian officials to spy on her fellow journalists.

She met Ahmedinejad and told him of the treatment she was subjected to and he denied it, although it was later confirmed to him by an aide.

Camilia said she is optimistic for Roxana's release, although MSNBC reported that Ahmedinejad has said he will not intervene.

Separately WABC Radio reported this morning that Ahmedinejad has said he hopes Saberi will be released.

Small signs of progress in a complex situation.

.

crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette

Roxana Saberi's Case Inches Forward

.
While hometowners are rallying support for Roxana Saberi via coverage on local radio and editorial commentary and, yes, the obligatory yellow ribbons, in Iran the momentum seems to be growing for Roxana's sentence to be eased.

Everybody's treading carefully on this one, our Congressional delegation is circumspect in their comments. But it wouldn't surprise our household if Roxana were released and presented with the oh-so-polite suggestion to depart the country permanently.

Is the outcome a fait accompli? We don't yet know...but we can hope this is all over but the posturing.

h/t and thanks to cbl for the msnbc link

UPDATE:

Just heard on a Fargo radio station that Roxana’s father Reza Saberi has said that she has told her parents if the sentence is upheld by the appeals court, she will go on a hunger strike to the death.

We in her hometown all share the concern that she is distraught. We urge that compassion over-ride whatever are Iran's internal political considerations and she be immediately released.

.
crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette

Roxana Saberi's 15 Minutes of Trial

.
Reports are that the Roxana Saberi trial—behind closed doors—lasted all of 15 minutes. [earlier CNN coverage]

He told CNN her trial only lasted about 15 minutes.

"The trial of course was not a real trial," her father told CNN. "A few minutes until the trial, she still didn't know there was a trial," he added. "It was a mock trial."

That pretty much sums up the sham that this whole process is. Not a matter of justice, but rather gamesmanship with an important election coming up in Iran in June.

And Roxana is caught in the middle.

Could it be that's too much even for the president of Iran?

Or is this a moment for him to try to curry favor with those who might be inclined to vote against him in the next election unless he pulls out a nice shiny object to polish and buff his own image in the mirror?

Huffington Post is reporting that Mahmoud Amedinejad is now saying Roxana should have a full defense at her appeal.

Sincerity from Amedinejad? Or convenient triangulation? For those of us who watch from Fargo, we do not care about the gamesmanship within Iran or between Iran and the US.

All we know is that Reza Saberi is an anguished parent seeking the release of his daughter Roxana who is, he says, "quite depressed" and "very frail."

And we want her and her parents to come back home...together and safe.
.
h/t cbl of fdl for the signpost to HuffPo's article
crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette
.
UPDATE: News sources and her colleagues at Medill School of Journalism are reporting that Roxana's defense team has gained a powerful new advocate, 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi.

Roxana Saberi Convicted of Spying

.

Roxana Saberi, according to a report at Huffington Post, has been convicted of spying charges.

Heartsore at this news for a fellow Fargoan, for her family, words fail me today.

.

UPDATED: More on Roxana's story this evening from the website of the Fargo tv station where she worked for a time before moving to Iran. Her father speaks out with deep concern about her being quite depressed.

.

Roxana Saberi Charged with Espionage

.

The details are scant, but devastatingly harsh.

Fargo native Roxana Saberi, who had reported from Iran with press credentials for globally respected news organizations including the BBC while a graduate student in Iran, has now been charged with espionage.

We're an optimistic and positive-thinking bunch in the upper heartland, so we'll think positive. But the charges, which have gone from allegations of buying a bottle of wine to espionage, hit our hearts with the same deep concern as looking out upon the Red River which will rise again and batter against sandbags with a second crest soon.

It's easy to jump to the conclusion that this idealistic woman who wanted to inform and educate people in the Western world about the everyday people of Iran is now being used as a pawn in global diplomacy and brinksmanship.

We only want to see her back home. We could use another sandbagger.

.

crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette

Saberi Monday

.
On Monday, Iranian prisoners are allowed weekly visits from members of their families.

On Monday, Roxana Saberi's parents visited her for half an hour.

Roxana's father described her as in good spirits.

On Monday, Roxana Saberi's imprisonment near Tehran continued....
.

Roxana Saberi's Imprisonment Continues

.
Despite hopes that action to release her would be taken before the Iranian New Year, Roxana Saberi still is imprisoned in Iran.

Now that the Iranian New Year celebration has begun, essentially the whole country goes on holiday for two weeks. A holiday that Roxana will not share.

Roxana's father, in a local television interview, said the New Year celebration was Roxana's favorite. He has not been able to speak to her since their March 9 conversation, a brief one that was monitored by Iranian officials.

North Dakota's Congressional delegation are all taking a personal interest in Roxana's circumstances, as is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And everyday people from bloggers to the North Dakota legislature which will introduce a resolution of support for the efforts to gain her release.

But it appears that until the holiday passes, the only option for Roxana is to pass yet more time confined in a prison near Tehran.
.
UPDATE: I've just spoken to Roxana's father, and I shared with him the concern and caring that people have expressed here and at Oxdown.

He will be talking with local media this afternoon about his open letter to the leadership of Iran. As soon as links to video are available, I'll post them.

One suggestion for those who want to help -- contact your Senators and Congresspeople and ask them to support the North Dakota Congressional delegation--Senators Dorgan and Conrad and Representative Pomeroy--in the efforts to bring Roxana home safe...and soon.

I'd add, ask the national media to pay attention, too.

It's time to bring Roxana home.
.
crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette

Three Critical Days for Roxana Saberi

.
News of any kind has been scant in the imprisonment in Iran of Roxana Saberi. Today, her father has told Fargo's Forum newspaper that the next three days will be critical toward the goal of her release.

Roxana Saberi grew up and attended schools in Fargo-Moorhead and began her journalism career here, one she continued while studying for her master's degree in Tehran. Now, that reporting may have led to her imprisonment these past six weeks.

The Saberi family attorney will be trying to determine if any actions have been taken in her case by Iranian officials. The Iranian New Year is approaching and Saberi's father says if no action is taken before that, she will be spending at least two more weeks in the prison.

Human Rights Watch and professional journalists' organizations as well as global media have appealed for her release. The family is also trying to work through the Japanese Embassy (Roxana's mother is Japanese).

For the Saberi family, the waiting is not idle...but it continues....
.
crossposted at firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette