US Emphasizes Following Up on Status of 'American Citizen' Imprisoned in Iran

On Tuesday, July 18, the spokesperson for the US State Department expressed concern about the status of an imprisoned American citizen in Iran, emphasizing that he does not hold dual Chinese and American citizenship and is 'American.' Heather Nauert, the spokesperson, highlighted the importance of the safety of American citizens to the US government, stating that she is unable to provide further details about the case for 'personal and private reasons.' However, she reported that the Swiss embassy, acting as the US interests section in Iran, has successfully met with the prisoner 'four times' so far, who was initially identified as 'Chinese-American.' She also noted that this individual, who has been imprisoned in Iran for about a year, 'does not have dual Chinese and American citizenship and is only American.' Previously, the wife of Xiao Wang, a Chinese-American researcher at Princeton University who has been sentenced to ten years in prison in Iran, had asked Iranian officials to release him, stating, 'He has been imprisoned unjustly.' Xiao Wang was arrested about a year ago, but news of his detention was released on Sunday when the Iranian judiciary spokesperson announced his prison sentence for 'illegal entry' into the country and 'sending confidential information abroad.' According to the Associated Press, this 37-year-old student, who Iranian officials claim holds citizenship in both China and the US, traveled to Iran to research his doctoral thesis, which focuses on the history of Europe-Asia relations in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In her first comments on the matter, Xiao Wang's wife described her husband as 'one of the kindest and most compassionate people I know' and added that they have a four-year-old son. In a statement released by Princeton University, she said, 'Our son has not seen his father for more than a year of his short life, and my husband has been imprisoned on charges of espionage that I am sure he never committed. We deeply hope that the responsible authorities in Iran will release him as soon as possible so he can return to his family.' Princeton University has been quietly working with the student's family, the US government, and lawyers to secure his release and hopes he will be freed after an appeals court hearing. The president of Princeton University stated in an email to university staff, a copy of which was provided to the Associated Press, that the university has been actively working every day for Xiao Wang's freedom and assisting his family. He explained that Princeton University and Xiao Wang's family decided to operate without any publicity on this matter because US government officials and other advisors had told them that publicity could harm the student's situation in Iran. According to the Mizan news website, affiliated with the Iranian judiciary, Xiao Wang was arrested on August 9 last year and is accused of sending confidential information about Iran to the US State Department, the Shirin Research Center, and Bijan Masoud Rahmani at Princeton University, Harvard University, and the Iran Research Center at the British Institute. Mizan claims that he copied about 4,500 pages of digital documents and paid several thousand dollars to access the confidential archives of libraries in Tehran. Steven Kotkin, Xiao Wang's advisor at Princeton University, stated that he was supposed to continue his research in Russia after Iran. The documents he copied were part of the materials Wang intended to research after leaving Tehran, and Steven Kotkin considers this work 'completely normal and part of academic research methods.' Xiao Wang is fluent in Mandarin Chinese and English, as well as Persian, Turkish, and Pashto, and has worked as a Pashto translator in Afghanistan. This was his first trip to Iran.