UPDATED 5/11/2009: Stephanopoulos, Ahmadinejad, and a Jailed American Journalist

UPDATE: Roxana Saberi was released today and is reportedly free to leave Iran after her sentence was reduced and suspended.  You can read more here. 

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I believe that there is an inherent value in talking to our adversaries.  I believe journalists should interview news-makers and heads of state–even those whose views are so distasteful as to be offensive. 

So it was that I sat down to watch ABC’s George Stephanopoulos interview Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday morning.  (If you don’t want to watch the video, you can view the transcript here.)

The Iranian President was in typical form.  He denied the holocaust.  He refused to commit to negotiations with the West, and the United States in particular.  The headline from the event appeared to be that Ahmadinejad had suggested he could accept a two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if the Palestinian people voted for it–a disingenuous ploy to distract from Iran’s support for Hamas and Hezbollah. 

In short, Ahmadinejad was Ahmadinejad.

But I was profoundly disappointed in the way ABC handled an issue that went-unaddressed in the portion of the interview it broadcast: the fate of an American journalist of Iranian descent languishing in an Iranian prison.

By now, most are familiar with the plight of Roxana Saberi.  She was arrested in late January for the possession of alcohol in Tehran–a criminal offense.  Later, it was said she was detained because her press credentials had expired.  Then earlier this month she was convicted of espionage and sentenced to eight years in prison.  Her father reports that she is currently on a hunger strike.

Scott Simon of NPR provides critical perspective on Saberi’s fate:

Some analysts suggest that Roxana Saberi has become a pawn in political games between factions in Iran, a kind of human chess piece Iran wants to swap for American concessions.

But the fate of no one in Evin Prison should be considered a game.

Amnesty International says that prison holds hundreds of the thousands of political prisoners in Iran. In 2003, Zahra Kazemi, a Canadian-Iranian photojournalist, was beaten to death there.

Amnesty has called for Roxana’s release and also that of Hossein Derakhshan, a Canadian-Iranian blogger, who has been in Evin since November for insulting religious figures; and Silva Harotonian, an Iranian of Armenian descent who was sentenced last June for trying to overthrow the Iranian government.

Esha Momeni, a graduate student from California, was released on bail in November, but cannot leave Iran.

The Iranian Political Prisoners Association lists hundreds of people whose names you would be even less likely to recognize: students, bloggers, dissidents and others who, in a society that lacks a free press, dare to practice free expression.

During the round-table portion of “This Week,” Stephanopoulos did say that he asked Ahmadenijad about Saberi.  The reply, reported further on ABC’s website, was that the matter was a legal matter and the Iranian President could not interfere.

We’re not in a position to know precisely what Stepahnopoulos or ABC did to raise the issue of Saberi–who has worked as a freelance journalist for the network.  But the on-screen performance was dissatisfying, to put it mildly.  Still, we can hope that as a prominent American journalist, Stephanopoulos did much more off camera than he did on camera to defend the rights of journalists and those who dare to ask questions in a closed society.  And as a human being, we can hope that he showed more compassion for the fate of a young woman jailed as part of a political game in a foreign land.

Interviews with foreign leaders are important–but so is the fate of Roxana Saberi.

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