In her six years in Iran she reported as a freelance journalist on Iranian society and current affairs. Following her arrest she was charged with espionage in April 2009. The Revolutionary Court sentenced her to eight years in prison. The appeals court reduced the sentence to two years and then suspended the sentence. She was released on May 11th 2009, after 100 days in detention and left Iran a few days later.

Saberi was born in New Jersey, USA, to an Iranian father and a Japanese mother. In 1997 she was chosen as Miss North Dakota and was among the top 10 finalists in Miss America 1998. She received her Master's degree in broadcast journalism from Northwestern University in Chicago and completed another Master's degree in international relations from Cambridge University in the UK. At the time of her arrest, Saberi was studying for a third Master's degree, this time in Iranian Studies.

In 2003, Saberi moved to Iran and worked as a freelance journalist for international media organizations including the BBC, PBS, Fox News, NPR, PRI, Deutsche Welle and ABC. She reported on a wide variety of subjects including politics, foreign policy, the nuclear program, the economy, culture and the changing roles of women in Iran.

Saberi received her press accreditation as a reporter of the Feature Story News (FSN), a feature service based in the United States that passed on her reports to a number of broadcasters around the world, including Channel News Asia, South African Broadcasting, Vatican Radio, Radio New Zealand, and Australian Independent Radio News. In 2006, Iranian authorities revoked her press accreditation but allowed her to report short news stories.

From “Buying Alcohol” to “Espionage”

In January 2009, authorities arrested Saberi and took her to Tehran’s Evin Prison. Her fate remained unknown until February 10th, when she was allowed to call her father Reza Saberi in North Dakota. She told him that she had been arrested for allegedly buying alcohol, an illegal offence in Iran.

However on March 2nd, a judiciary spokesman confirmed that she had been arrested on the orders of the Revolutionary Court, but said that he did not know about the charges. The Iranian Foreign Ministry said that Saberi’s arrest was due to her working illegally as a journalist.

After her imprisonment was confirmed, a number of international news organizations, including ABC, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, NPR and BBC, wrote to the government, objecting to the treatment of Saberi.

In an interview shortly after her release, Saberi described her arrest and her imprisonment. “I was in my home on January 31st, when, at 9 o'clock in the morning, four men from the Intelligence Ministry came to my home,” she said. “They confiscated my computers and a number of my documents and books, and then they took me to another building for interrogation. None of my neighbors saw me being arrested or taken away, and I wasn't allowed to tell anybody where I was.”

“I was told that if I don't cooperate, if I don't confess to being a spy, that I would be taken to Evin that evening,” said Saberi. “And because I did not want to make a false confession and say that I was a spy, they took me to Evin. I was allowed to call my parents about 11 days later…And they forced me to tell a lie — that I didn't know where I was and that I had been arrested for alcohol, but these were not true.”

“I was under severe psychological and mental pressure, although I was not physically tortured,” she said. “The first few days, I was interrogated for several hours, from morning until evening, blindfolded, facing a wall, by up to four men, and threatened…that I would be put in prison for 10 to 20 years or more or even face execution. And I was in solitary confinement for several days. The really difficult thing was that they didn't let me tell anyone where I was.”

Eventually she was forced to make a false confession, and on April 17th 2009, a Revolutionary Court in Tehran sentenced Saberi to eight years in prison for spying for the US. The trial was conducted behind closed doors and lasted for only a day.

On April 20th, to protest against her unjust treatment and sentence, Saberi began a hunger strike that lasted two weeks. Her physical condition deteriorated and she was transferred from her cell to the prison’s clinic but publicly the Iranian judiciary called news of her hunger strike “a lie” and claimed that she was in good health.

The sentence and hunger strike led to international calls for her release. The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed concern about her health and called the Islamic Republic a country that appeared “impervious” to human rights concerns and “civilized standards.” Amnesty International also issued a statement calling for her release.

No, Not a Spy!

On May 4th, a judiciary spokesman announced that Saberi’s case had been sent to Branch 14 of the Revolutionary Appeals Court and on May 10th, the court dropped the charge of spying and instead tried her on the charge of “activities against national security” through “gathering documents and evidence against the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

The appeals court vacated the eight-year sentence and gave her a suspended prison term of two years. The interesting part of the verdict was that Saberi was explicitly allowed to leave Iran — an unusual kindness granted by a Revolutionary Court, to say the least. It appears that the Iranian regime and judiciary wanted to wash their hands of the whole affair without exonerating her.

Roxana Saberi was released from Evin Prison on May 11th after spending 100 days in detention and on May 15th left Iran for Austria and then for the United States, accompanied by her parents, who had traveled to Iran.

Her freedom gave rise to speculations about why she was arrested and why she was released. “While analysts might not agree on the reasons behind Iran's decision to free Saberi, there is broad agreement that the case was politically motivated,” wrote Golnaz Esfandiari for Radio Free Europe. “Saberi's imprisonment was seen by some as an attempt by Iran's hard-liners to sabotage Obama's offer of engagement with the Islamic republic.”

On May 27th, Hillary Clinton met with Saberi and welcomed her back. "When I found out that I had the support while I was in prison, I gained a lot of strength and hope, and I didn't feel so alone anymore," said Saberi.

In 2010 Saberi published a book about her experience, Between Two Worlds: My Life and Captivity in Iran. She has received several awards for her work, including the James Foley Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism in 2008, the Ilaria Alpi Freedom of the Press Award and the NCAA Award of Valor in 2009.

She now lives in London and joined CBS in January 2018.