Updated Monday at 11:50 p.m.
When Medill professor Jack Doppelt checked his e-mail early Monday morning, he had an unusually long stream of messages. And they all said the same thing: Roxana Saberi is free.
Saberi, a Medill graduate and journalist, left the prison where she had been kept under charges of spying on Iran, according to her lawyers.
Saberi’s father, Reza Saberi, who had traveled to Iran to be near his daughter, told reporters “she is practically free as of now.” He added that “she is in good condition, and we are very happy that they gave us such a break for her.”
An Iranian appeals court met Sunday to review Saberi’s charges and decided to downgrade them from passing along secret information to only having access to secret information. The lighter charges came with a reduced jail time and allowed for Saberi’s release from prison.
According to the BBC, Saberi will be allowed to leave the country, but will not be able to work as a journalist in Iran for the next five years.
Medill faculty and students who had been supporting, and even fasting for Saberi organized an impromptu celebration of her release Monday afternoon in the lobby of the McCormick Tribune Center.
As a symbol of the abruptness of the news of Saberi’s release, and the kind of reception the news got at Northwestern, Medill Dean John Lavine showed the crowd a sign he had held at the rally during the April 26 rally. The sign originally said “Bring Her Home!” but Lavine said when he came across the sign again on Monday, the words had been changed to “She’s Coming Home!” It was the “best change ever,” Lavine said.
Along with the Medill dean, Professors Doppelt and Larry Stuelpnagel and Medill senior Shari Weiss shared their reactions and reflections. Doppelt later said Saberi’s detention had “strengthened” his appreciation for work of reporting, and that Saberi’s case reminded him that “there’s a real proud calling to journalism,” he said.
The crowd was nearly all journalists, and journalists have been largely responsible for giving Saberi’s case unique and constant exposure during the past months.
Doppelt attributed Saberi’s release — something certainly not guaranteed when journalists remain imprisoned throughout the world — to a “convergence of forces.” For reasons he doesn’t fully understand, Doppelt said, Saberi “became the one person around the world that people cared about more than” the other imprisoned reporters. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are among public figures who called for her release.
Stuelpnagel, who also teaches in the political science department, said Saberi’s case had everything with the state of diplomatic relations between Iran and the U.S. The mullahs in Iran saw Saberi as a good chance to “muck up” a rapprochement between the two countries, but diplomacy and U.S. pressure won out in the end, he said.
For Doppelt, caring about and taking action on Saberi’s case was a personal and professional matter. Saberi was Doppelt’s student more than a decade ago. When there’s “someone you have inspired to do the exact work she does,” and that work lands her in prison only years later, it’s hard not to feel invested, Doppelt explained.
Although Saberi has not yet given word about her plans to return, Doppelt is confident that, after some rest, she will return to journalism. He’s also confident she’ll make a stop at Northwestern. A visit from Saberi this year is possible, but more likely she will come next year, Doppelt said. Stuelpnagel threw out the idea of Saberi as the Medill 2010 commencement speaker, and Lavine vocally agreed.
Weiss said she thinks Saberi has noticed the outpouring of support from Northwestern, and that this will make her return to the university an especially sweet one. When she gets home, she’ll find out “she was very missed and very loved” at Northwestern, Weiss said.