NEWSWEEK: Evin Prison—what’s it like? Haleh Esfandiari: The prison is a prison; solitary confinement is solitary confinement. I decided that I wasn’t going to fall into despair. Being a very disciplined person, I started a very rigorous program of exercising, walking, writing a biography of my Iranian grandmother in my head—I didn’t want to put anything on paper—and reading. I would keep myself busy unless I was called in for interrogation.

How were the interrogations? They were very polite, very mild, because I had been questioned for four months before I was taken to Evin. The bulk of the Q&A was done while I was outside prison. I would go in between 9 and 10 and go home between 5 and 6. So by the time I went to Evin, the sessions were maybe three hours maximum—a couple of times a week at first and then, toward the end, very little because we had covered all the ground. I was waiting to be set free, and they were trying to find a way to let me go. But they were always very polite, and I was very polite with them. They said, “If you’re tired, you can go back to your room,” and I said, “No, let’s continue,” since I wanted to get it done.

Did you experience any kind of Stockholm syndrome? No! I always kept my distance from them, and they kept their distance from me.

Were you ever worried you wouldn’t get out? If you’re in solitary confinement, of course there are moment that you think, “Will I ever get out?” But I would talk to my mother a couple of times a week, and she would say, “Look, you’ll be out. You’ll be united with your family. Have faith in God. Everybody’s working on your case.” And that’s all she would tell me because she was not at liberty to say what was going on.

Did they let your mother visit? After the second or third week, they offered to arrange a visit by her. But my mother is 93 years old. She’s terribly frail, and I just didn’t want her to come to prison and see me there. But at some stage, she insisted that she see me, so she came and we had one meeting. But I could have had more.

How did she take it? She got very emotional, and I got very emotional. By that time, I had lost almost 16 pounds, and then I lost four more pounds. And she’d lost an equal amount of weight. I was very much taken aback when I saw her, and she was taken aback when she saw me. I explained that the loneliness was terrible, but I got to work out, to walk, to write in my mind, to read.

Were you told what you’d been accused of? They kept on talking about a “Velvet Revolution” I supposedly wanted to foment in Iran. I would approve of it, but I never knew what that was—honestly … The assumption was that the United States is no longer interested in military intervention in Iran, so it is trying to bring regime change through a velvet revolution—and the Wilson Center in Washington was supposedly the vehicle. I never heard or saw the espionage charge—the first I heard of it was [after I’d left].

Did they point to anything you’d done as evidence? Luckily, all our programs at the Wilson Center are transparent. So for everything they asked, I could refer them to the Web site. At the beginning they wanted a list of all the meetings we’d had for the Middle East program. My colleagues at the Wilson Center put together the whole list. They e-mailed it to me, and I had to translate it into Persian. I became very good at translation.

So they were charging you with a motive but not a concrete crime? There was nothing concrete. They truly believed that the United States is planning a regime change through some velvet revolution: empowering women, empowering NGOs, organizing conferences, focusing on key people, key university professors, that sort of thing.

Would you go back to Iran for a trial? They never discussed charges or trial with me, so I don’t think there will be one. I just want to stay put and enjoy my home, my family, my grandchildren and my colleagues, who have been so supportive. I went to a reception yesterday at the Wilson Center and I told them that, for four months, I fought tears—I didn’t want to shed a single drop of tear in front of my interrogators—but they brought me to tears twice in one day with the outpouring of love and warmth. I didn’t have a clue of the international and media support I was getting, which was amazing. There was a huge outpouring of sympathy in this country and in Europe.

It would have helped to know that in prison. Oh yes, but I didn’t know anything about it. I had access to Iranian TV and newspaper, but they didn’t cover me.