US - Iranian reporter, Roxana Saberi, has no plan to move out of Iran

2009-05-12 20:14:18

TEHRAN, May 12 (Xinhua) --

Roxana Saberi, the freed U.S.-Iranian reporter, said on Tuesday that she has no plan to move out of Iran currently.

Talking to the reporters in front of her apartment in Tehran, on Dibadji street, Saberi said she is "happy" to be freed (from jail) and reunite with her parents, and she "has no plan to move out of Iran for the time being."

"I have no specific plan to do right now. I want to be by the side of my parents and with my friends," she said.

In a brief sentence she also thanked her journalist friends and their sympathetic feelings toward her.

Her father, Reza Saberi, who was accompanying her also told the reporters that "She is having good food and good sleep."

He also confirmed her daughters remarks that "We are not intending to leave Iran now."

Iran's judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi said on Monday that Ms. Saberi will face "journalism ban," but no "travel ban," according to the local satellite Press TV.

Saberi, a 32-year-old freelance journalist born in the United States and whose father is an Iranian, was arrested in Iran in the second half of January 2009 on charges of espionage for the United States. She was freed from the jail in Tehran on Monday afternoon.

In April, Saberi received eight years of sentence, but in the appeal court on Monday, her sentence was reduced to a two-year suspended term.

In Iran, Saberi has been working for various news organizations including the BBC and U.S. National Public Radio (NPR).

According to Iranian authorities, Saberi had been denied press credentials since 2006, but she defied the ban and continued journalistic activities.

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