Princeton students urge Hezbollah to release fellow student, pro-Iranian regime prof refuses to aid

• Published date: 11 March 2024
• Author: BENJAMIN WEINTHAL
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

The student newspaper The Daily Princetonian on Friday reported last week that a graduate student circulated an email as part of campaign on a student list with the call to "help save our colleague's life!"

According to the paper, "The message encouraged students to send letters to Congress to bring attention to the situation" of Tsurkov, who was kidnapped by the Iranian regime-backed terrorist organization Kataib Hezbollah in March, 2023.

"Our main goal is just making sure that she's not forgotten," Narrelle Gilchrist, a graduate student organizer with the campaign, said, according to The Daily Princetonian.

Tsurkov's family is appealing to the Princeton community to send letters to congress to win Elizabeth's freedom, the student paper wrote. "Her case has not gotten enough attention until now, and her life is in danger," noted the email. Tsurkov was conducting research at the the time in Iraq for her PhD.

Pro-Iranian regime professor refuses to aid in releasing kidnapped student

The author of The Daily Princetonian article, Bridget O'Neill, reported that, in November, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce sent a letter to Princeton President Christopher L. Eisgruber covering an investigation into the university's pro-Islamic Republic of Iran academic Seyed Hossein Mousavian.

The congressional representatives wrote "Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Princeton doctoral student, is currently being held hostage in Iraq by Iran-backed militias. Has Princeton asked Mousavian to assist in Tsurkov's release? Has Mousavian offered to use his contacts to try to free Tsurkov?

The Jerusalem Post on Sunday approached Mousavian and Princeton University spokesman Michael Hotchkiss for comments.

The congressional representatives requested that Eisgruber answer their questions about Mousavian's alleged failure to aid the Chinese-American scholar Xiyue Wang, who kidnapped by the clerical regime in August, 2016 and released in December, 2019.

"Based on my understanding that Mousavian did not help me I would guess he is not working to help Tsurkov," Wang told Iran International in November,

Mousavian told Iran International "neither [Hassan] Rouhani as the then-president, nor [Mohammad Javad] Zarif as the then-foreign minister had no power, influence and authority to intervene in Wang's case. In 2009, an Iranian court sentenced the brother of President Hassan Rouhani, Hossein Fereydoun, to five years in prison."

Wang fired back that "The problem is not really whether Zarif...