US Hostages Released From Iran

Haleh Esfandiari, a former political prisoner herself, talks about Iran’s release of Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian and three other Americans as part of a prisoner swap with the US.



Haleh Esfandiari, the former and founding Director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, is a Public Policy Fellow at the Wilson Center. She has had a rich and varied career. In her native Iran, she was a journalist, served as deputy secretary general of the Women's Organization of Iran, and was the deputy director of a cultural foundation where she was responsible for the activities of several museums and art and cultural centers. She taught Persian language at Oxford University and, prior to coming to the Wilson Center, from 1980 to 1994, she taught Persian language, contemporary Persian literature, and courses on the women's movement in Iran at Princeton University. Dr. Esfandiari was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars from 1995 to 1996. She is also the author of, “My Prison, My Home: One Woman's Story of Captivity in Iran.”