First-year University of Texas graduate student Omid Kokabee is scheduled to faces charges of espionage in court on Tuesday. According to his lawyer, Kokabee is pleading not guilty in response to accusations against him having “relations with a hostile country” and receiving “illegitimate funds” in exchange for leaking Iranian nuclear secrets to the American government. Under Iranian penal code, charges of espionage are punishable by death. Kokabee is currently incarcerated in Iran’s Evin Prison, and has been detained since February.
Kokabee’s case directly impacts the future of all students studying abroad from the Middle East. Before the Iranian hostage crisis, in which many Americans were held hostage for over a year at the American Embassy in 1979, many American students could have travelled and even studied abroad in Iran, a country rich with culture but tainted by corruption. Many Iranian students were also able to travel to the United States for their education, and prior to the crisis had little trouble returning. Now, Kokabee, who is an Iranian native, is being detained as a result of turbulent Iran-U.S. political relations.
What is most disturbing about this situation is that UT has done little to generate public awareness around Kokabee’s predicament. Their continued silence on this issue would be a colossal misstep and could prove highly detrimental for both Kokabee and future UT students who are interested in studying abroad. As an educational institution, the university has a responsibility to look after its students, especially when they are in a foreign environment or dangerous situation.
Volatile relations between the United States and Iran should also be more removed from the realm of education. According to The Daily Texan, the American Physical Society recently released a letter stating that Kokabee has “no training in nuclear physics, is not politically active and is not associated with any political movements in Iran…this area of physics [that he was studying] has essentially no overlap with nuclear technology.”
Kokabee has likely only been detained as long as he has because of his status as an American student. The Iranian government should look past their political history with the United States and set Kokabee free.
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