ACE and 32 other higher education organizations issued a statement
last week in support of Princeton University (NJ) graduate student
Xiyue Wang, who has been imprisoned in Iran while conducting academic
research.
Wang, a fourth-year graduate student
in Princeton’s Department of History and a naturalized U.S. citizen
since 2009, was detained and confined to Evin Prison in Tehran while in
Iran solely for the purpose of studying Farsi and doing scholarly
research in connection with his Ph.D. dissertation.
Before traveling, he described his research plans to Iranian
authorities and the libraries and archives he planned to visit, and he
only sought materials that he needed for his dissertation.
The July 27 statement urges that he be safely released and allowed to
return home to reunite with his wife and young son and to complete his
degree. It notes that “Mr. Wang’s imprisonment can only have a chilling
effect on historical research and scholarly exchange in Iran and
throughout the world, and this, in turn, can only lead to diminished
understanding and greater mistrust, to the detriment of all.”