The following info is from a Broadside article, "Iranian-American Scholar Detained in Iran," by Rachael Dickson and Dane Styler
An Iranian-American academic, the wife of a Robinson professor at George Mason University, was sent to an infamous Iranian prison Evin last Tuesday, May 8, after being detained In Iran for more than four months.
Haleh Esfandiari, is 67-year-old director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, and a duel citizen of Iran and the United States. She has lived in the United States since 1980, having left Iran at the time of the Iranian Revolution. According to the Wilson Center she had been located at Iran's Intelligence Ministry for questioning previous to her incarceration. Her husband, Dr. Shaul Bakhash, a professor of Middle East history, has said to the Associated Press that his wife is uninvolved in politics and has done nothing to justify her incarceration.

"I have Professor Bakhash for History 461 Arab-Israeli conflict this semester. As a matter of fact our Final is tomorrow afternoon. He is a wonderful man, so full of spirit and enthusiasm for teaching. He also brings to light tough issues much more clearly then any teacher I have ever had. I hope and pray that his wife is returned safely, and that the Iranian regime does not see fit to try and use his wife for a "political" statement. This is absolute horrible, and I hope all of Mason stands behind Professor Bakhash and his family."

- j.sorg posted on the Broadside Online blog

According to the Wilson Center, on Dec. 30 Esfandiari was robbed by three masked men with knives, who took her baggage and her passports. Esfandiari was in Theran visiting her 93-year-old mother.
A few days later, when applying for new travel documents at the passport office, Esfandiari was invited to an interview by a man who was later discovered to represent Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence. This interview was only the first in a series of interrogations that stretched out over the next six weeks. These questionings, often unpleasant and threatening, could last seven or eight hours a day, continuing for as many as four days a week. Esfandiari was allowed to go home each evening.
“As a public organization, all Wilson Center activities are on the public record. In fact, the interrogators could have obtained virtually all the information they sought in a far less cumbersome way—by a few clicks on the Wilson Center website and through Wilson Center publications,” the Wilson Center said in a statement on its website.
The interrogator’s questions were almost entirely about the programs and activities of the Middle East program at the Wilson Center. The Center provided Esfandiari with requested information, to refresh her memory, when questions were asked about programs going back several years. Esfandiari was reportedly pressured to make false confessions implicating the Wilson Center in activities which it had no part in. The center's Middle East program studies the political, social and economic developments in the region. It also looks at U.S. interests and terrorism threats in the region.
Though the president and director of the Wilson Center, Lee Hamilton, wrote to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmainejad in February about Esfandiari’s case, the president has yet to acknowledge or reply to the letter.
The interrogations stopped February 14, from which time Esfandiari heard nothing from her interrogators for ten weeks. After she refused a final request to confess she was summoned to the Ministry of Intelligence, put into a car and taken to Evin prison. She was allowed one phone call to her mother. Her family has not heard from her since.
Presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton have released statements calling for the release of Esfandiari, “The Iranian government's detention of this 67-year-old grandmother and scholar shows its complete disregard for basic human rights," Obama said in a statement. "If the Iranian government has any desire to engage the world in dialogue, it can demonstrate that desire by releasing this champion of dialogue from detention." Maryland Sens. Barbara Mikulski and Benjamin L. Cardin also released a joint statement urging Iran to release the Esfandiari. Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland has said that he plans to call on his congressional colleagues to pass a resolution demanding Esfandiair’s release.
Evin Prison has been notorious for its political prisoners’ wing from before the 1979 Iranian revolution. It is located in a large park with an upscale teahouse and restaurant right next to it. Photography in front of and around the prison is illegal. In 2003, Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi was arrested for taking photographs in front of the prison. During her imprisonment, Kazemi was beaten to death. Doctors who examined her body afterwards found evidence of rape and torture.
Esfandiari's arrest is seen as tied in with the case of Parnaz Azima, a correspondent for the Persian version of U.S. political service Radio Free Europe, who has been prevented from leaving Iran since January. Neither woman has had any charges publicly leveled against them.