Journalist Bahari: "I am free now, but others are not."

Journalist Maziar Bahari, who spent almost four months in a six-by 12 foot cell in Tehran's Evin prison on what he says were unspecified espionage charges, urged journalists to remember others who are imprisoned and work for their release.

"I am free now, but others are not," the Iranian-born Bahari told a Newsmaker audience June 16.

Bahari, a journalist, filmmaker and former Newsweek correspondent, also co-authored with Aimee Molloy a book about this experience, Then They Came for Me: A Family's Story of Love, Captivity and Survival, which he distributed at the Newsmaker. Complimentary copies are still available for members.

Bahari, now a Canadian citizen, said that as part of their psychological presssure, his captors told him, "No one on the outside cares about you. Everyone has forgotten you."

Instead, he later learned Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper, Newsweek and other media organizations, including Britain's Channel 4 News, CNN and the BBC, mounted an ultimately successful campaign to free him.

Bahari gives the American news magazine the major credit here. "The Newsweek campaign brought about my release," he said. But he thanked all who worked for his freedom. "I was humbled by such overwhelming solidarity among my colleagues, friends, and even strangers who all worked so hard to save me."

On October 17, 2009, he said, he was released from prison as suddenly as he was arrested and jailed - again with no explanation.

At the time of Bahari's release, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 25 Iranian journalists were in jail.