Princeton Student Imprisoned in Iran

, Malcolm A. Kline, Leave a comment

We frequently learn the hard way that for all of our conflicts over academic freedom, there is more of it in the United States than there is anywhere else. “Earlier this week word arrived that Princeton University history graduate student Xiyue Wang, sentenced in July by the Iranian government to ten years in prison for alleged espionage, is being transferred from general detention to Ward 7, a more extreme prison unit run by Iran’s intelligence agency,” Hank Reichman wrote on the academe blog maintained by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) three days ago. “When Wang arrived there, his life was immediately threatened by a Taliban inmate who was previously imprisoned by the U.S. at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan.”

“When Wang was in Unit 7 earlier this year, this same prisoner badly beat him.”