Tag Archives: Iran

Sharif University faculty protest US arrest

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Faculty members at Sharif University of Technology (SUT) in Tehran, Iran, have protested the arrest by US authorities of electrical engineering professor Seyed Mojtaba Atarodi, who was visiting the US when he was detained on 7 December.  

News of the arrest became public on 26 January when Atarodi attended a closed court hearing in California.

In a statement dated 11 January but provided to Nature on 30 January, members of the faculty council of SUT (pictured) suggest that Atarodi has been indicted for purchasing items in the US for his lab at SUT, which might violate a ban on US trade with Iran.

The statement reads as an impassioned plea for Iranian faculty traveling abroad to be treated like faculty from other countries, stressing the normality of picking up items for one’s lab such as books, test equipment or integrated circuits. The faculty say that most of the items Atarodi is accused of buying are not in the “dual use” category that could have application in Iran’s nuclear program and would require a special permit and that they are available on the open market in Iran anyway.

 “We believe holding a distinguished 55 year old professor in custody is a historical mistake and not commensurate with the image that America strives to extend throughout the world as a bastion of free scientific exchange among schools and academic institutions, ” the statement says.

The US authorities will not say what law Atarodi is charged with violating or what items he bought. Kenneth Katzman, an Iran expert at the Congressional Research Service in Washington DC, says buying the items mentioned in the SUT statement, which include an oscilloscope and integrated circuits, without a license, would violate a 1995 US Executive Order banning trade and investment with Iran, but in a way that would usually warrant a civil penalty, and not rise to being a criminal matter. But the situation could be exacerbated if a person was accused of conspiring to undermine the trade ban, or conspiracy to export arms, or had been granted a visa for a different purpose, says Katzman.

Atarodi’s attorney, Matt Kohn, who is based in Santa Monica, California, says court rules prevent him from saying what Atarodi has been charged with or what the professor’s position is on the charges against him because the indictment has been sealed. He also is not at liberty to say why the sealing took place. However, he notes that he has past experience representing an Iranian businessman who was charged by a sealed indictment with violating the 1995 Executive Order and that sealing in such cases is not uncommon.

Scott Kemp, an expert on nuclear non-proliferation at Princeton University, says that the seriousness of the US case against Atarodi may depend on whether the government has evidence or a suspicion that the items allegedly bought were going to end up being used in the Iran nuclear program, rather than peacefully at SUT. Kemp adds that going back to the 1980s, a number of Sharif University professors have had connections to the Iranian nuclear program, not as a specific policy of the university but simply because it is the leading technical university making it natural that the Iranian government might go there for advice.

The SUT faculty statement appears to allege that Atarodi, who has had heart problems since 2010, suffered a stroke while in US detention. However, Kohn tells Nature that Atarodi did not suffer a stroke or any kind of health emergency in US custody, and that the US attorney prosecuting the case has been very attentive to his health needs.

Mohammad Sharifkhani, a professor in the electrical engineering department and a chair of the public relations office for SUT, says the faculty are very concerned about the case, “which is contrary to the widely known standards of free scientific exchange throughout the world.”

Visiting Iranian scientist falls foul of US authorities

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Additional Reporting by Geoff Brumfiel

An Iranian semiconductor scientist said to be visiting the United States for health reasons has been arrested and charged with buying lab equipment in violation of export laws, the Associated Press (AP) reports.

Seyed Mojtaba Atarodi of Iran’s Sharif University of Technology in Tehran (SUT; pictured, right) appeared in court on 26 January for a closed hearing after being arrested on 7 December 2011. A spokesman for the US Attorney’s office in San Francisco told Nature the office had no comment, including even on what charges had been filed, and no listing appears under Atarodi’s name in US federal court records. Nature was not able to confirm the AP’s information about the charges, which came from an unnamed SUT source.

Atarodi’s publication record points to expertise in materials science and electrical engineering and shows past international collaborations with, among others, engineers at the University of California, Irvine, and the CNRS, France’s basic-research institute in Toulouse. He heads a large group researching microchip technology in the electrical-engineering department, according to SUT’s web site.

Baktash Behmanesh, a PhD student of Atarodi’s at SUT, told Nature that he was one of the last people to see Atarodi in Iran before his departure for the United States and that he understands the trip was for health reasons. “We are looking forward to his freedom, because we believe that he is completely innocent,” Behmanesh says.

Atarodi’s attorney did not return calls seeking comment, but the AP reports that the purpose of Atarodi’s US trip was to see a cardiologist and that Atarodi was granted bail partly for health reasons yesterday.

US–Iran scientific exchange has long been made difficult by the hostile relations between the two countries. Most recently, the tense situation was exacerbated by a series of mysterious killings of workers in Iran’s nuclear programme (see ‘Murders Unlikely to Slow Iran’s Nuclear Efforts‘). Fredun Hojabri, a retired chemist who worked at SUT before immigrating to the United States during the Iranian Revolution, and who now works to support equal opportunities for younger Iranian scientists in the United States, says that a major problem is the sometimes draconian interpretation of US sanctions against Iran, which are supposed to exempt scientific exchange but can in practice impede it. For example, a special permit is needed to purchase lab equipment that may have a dual use in the Iranian nuclear programme. “Anything can fall in this category,” Hojabri says. He says that although the occasional person may set out to violate the law, it is more common that legitimate visiting scientists pick up something in the United States for their lab in Iran without thinking it is illegal.

Image: SUT/Public Domain

‘Brain circulation’ and other trends in global science

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Forget ‘brain drain’ – many countries are now focusing their efforts on making the most of ‘brain circulation’, according to a new report on global science from the Royal Society, Britain’s national academy of science.

In a shift away from attempting to stem the flow of talented scientists overseas, countries such as China and India are setting aside resources to attract native scientists back home later in their careers while maintaining their links with host countries.

Many nomadic scientists who remain overseas are also keen to maintain links with their home countries but are unsure where to start, making them an “untapped resource” for international collaboration, according to the report, Knowledge, Networks and Nations: Global Scientific Collaboration in the 21st Century.

Where brain drain is still a major problem, such as in Africa, governments need to reward talented scientists and enable them to foster global networks while ensuring they also help build national research capacity.

Other highlights of the report include:

• International collaboration is growing, and has a significant effect on a research paper’s impact (see ‘Research sans frontières’ for more)

• In addition to the meteoric rise of China and, to a lesser extent, Brazil and India, other rapidly emerging scientific nations include Turkey, Iran and Tunisia

• R&D investment in developing countries is increasing: the share of foreign-owned business R&D in the developing world grew from 2% in 1996 to 18% in 2002

• Regions and cities are displacing countries as the relevant unit when discussing R&D – in the United States, the state of California accounted for more than one-fifth of national R&D spending in 2004, while Moscow accounts for 50% of Russian research articles

• Many established research centres and funders have become global brands that are no longer necessarily confined to their geographic location – the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom has a campus in China, for example, while the UK-based Wellcome Trust helps fund institutes in Asia and Africa

What’s your reaction to the report? If you’re a scientist working overseas, do you plan to return home later in your career? Are you seeing the benefits of international collaboration? Share your thoughts below.