Cecilia Sala, a journalist who has been detained in Iran, speaking in Milan, Italy, in February.
Credit...Elena Di Vincenzo/Mondadori Portfolio, via Getty Images

Italian Journalist Is Detained While Reporting in Iran

Cecilia Sala, 29, was arrested on Dec. 19, but news of her detention only became public on Friday. The reason for the arrest of Ms. Sala, a well-known reporter, has not been made public.

by · NY Times

A prominent Italian journalist was arrested in Iran and jailed in the country’s infamous Evin prison after spending days reporting in Tehran, Italian officials said.

Italy’s foreign ministry said the journalist, Cecilia Sala, 29, was arrested on Dec. 19, but news of her arrest and detention only became public on Friday. The reason for the arrest of Ms. Sala, one of Italy’s most renowned foreign correspondents, has not yet been made public.

Ms. Sala, a writer and a podcaster, had published reports from Tehran since Dec. 13, describing how the country had changed over the past tumultuous year as military conflict roiled the region and Iran ushered in new leadership with its president, Masoud Pezeshkian, taking office in July.

In her coverage, Ms. Sala described how many women were now no longer wearing a hijab in defiance of the country’s leadership, and she interviewed an Iranian stand-up comedian who had been jailed in Iran.

Ms. Sala was supposed to board her flight back to Italy on Dec. 20, but she did not show up at Tehran’s airport, Italy’s foreign ministry said.

Il Post, an Italian news website where Ms. Sala’s partner, Daniele Raineri, works as a journalist, reported that Ms. Sala was in Iran on an eight-day journalist visa. The outlet said that Ms. Sala was in solitary confinement in Evin, a detention facility in Tehran where hundreds of dissidents and political prisoners are held.

Italy’s foreign ministry was negotiating for Ms. Sala’s release.

Iran has routinely incarcerated Iranian reporters. Recently, it detained journalists who covered the case of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian woman whose death in police custody ignited fierce anti-government protests in 2022. The country has also jailed foreigners and dual nationals, and human rights groups said many of these detentions were a part of a deliberate policy to extract concessions from foreign countries, including prisoner swaps.

A day before Ms. Sala was arrested in Iran, the police in Milan, Italy, said they had arrested a 38-year-old Iranian man whom the United States accused of providing drone components to the Iran’s Revolutionary Guards — the country’s primary military force. The man faces extradition to the United States, the Italian police said in a statement.

The statement did not name the man, but earlier that week, the Justice Department charged two men with illegally supplying parts used in an Iranian-backed militia’s drone attack that killed three U.S. service members at an American military base in Jordan in January.

Italy’s foreign ministry said the country’s ambassador to Iran, Paola Amadei, had visited Ms. Sala on Friday and checked on her conditions. Since she was arrested, Italy’s foreign ministry said, Ms. Sala had the opportunity to make two phone calls to her relatives.

In her coverage, Ms. Sala reported not only on the anti-government protests known as the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, but also on the high levels of inflation plaguing the country. She also focused on how Iran’s “axis of resistance” has been unraveling since the fall of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, an ally of the Islamic Republic.

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