About FreeRoxana

In March 2009, Keith Kamisugi and Steve Chin started a national campaign to seek the release of Roxana Saberi, an American journalist of Iranian and Japanese descent who was arrested in February and held in Iran on charges of espionage. For more than two months, Kamisugi and Chin worked with about a dozen folks around the country and the Asian American Journalists Association through Facebook, Twitter and our blog to highlight Roxana’s plight. Roxana was thankfully freed on May 11, 2009. There’s a long list of people that were instrumental in this effort. The freeroxana.net domain name was discontinued on March 2010.

Roxana Saberi, age 31, is an American journalist of Iranian and Japanese descent who was arrested in February 2009, held in Iran on charges of espionage, which her lawyer and the U.S. Dept. of State called baseless, and freed on May 11, 2009.

Saberi is a freelance journalist who moved to Iran six years ago, and reports for NPR, the BBC, and other news organizations.

She grew up in Fargo, N.D., the daughter of Reza Saberi, who was born in Iran, and Akiko Saberi, who is from Japan. She was chosen Miss North Dakota in 1997 and was among the top ten finalists in Miss America 1998. She graduated from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn., with degrees in communication and French.

She holds her first Master’s Degree in Journalism from Northwestern University and her second Master’s Degree in International Relations from Cambridge University. She is currently working on yet another Masters degreee in Iranian studies and international relations.

The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that in 2008, Iran was the sixth-leading jailer of journalists.

From Wikipedia and other sources.