An Italian journalist was arrested while reporting in the Iranian capital, Tehran, and held in solitary confinement for a week, according to Italy’s Foreign Ministry.
Cecilia Sala, 29, a war correspondent and reporter who works for the newspaper Il Foglio and the podcast company Chora Media, was detained on December 19, the ministry said, but her arrest was only made public on Friday. Was.
She was in the country on a regular journalist visa and had published several reports on the changing landscape in Iran following the fall of the Assad regime in Syria.
“Following orders from Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, the embassy and consulates in Tehran have been monitoring the case since the beginning,” Italy’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “Working in coordination with the Council President, we have engaged with Iranian authorities to clarify Salah’s legal status and verify the conditions of his detention.”
Salah is being held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, which mostly houses detainees facing security charges. It has long been criticized by Western rights groups and was blacklisted by the US government in 2018 for “serious human rights abuses”.
The Foreign Ministry said Sala has been allowed to make two phone calls to his relatives. The Italian ambassador, Paola Amadei, visited Sala in prison on Friday, and Tajani said the journalist was “in good health condition”.
Chora Media said in a statement: “Cecilia’s independent voice has been silenced. Italy and Europe cannot tolerate this arbitrary arrest. Cecilia Sala should be released immediately.
Il Foglio said in the article: “Journalism is not a crime. We decided to share Cecilia’s story after receiving assurances from our diplomacy chiefs that informing our readers about her arrest would not slow diplomatic efforts to bring her home.
Sala has almost half a million followers on Instagram and is a regular guest on Italian talkshows. He has covered the fall of Kabul and the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the crisis in Venezuela, the war in Ukraine, and the conflict between Israel and Hamas, among other topics.
Elie Schlein, leader of the center-left opposition Democratic Party, urged the government to act swiftly. “We immediately call on the government to shed light on this case, to clarify the reasons for this detention and, above all, to take every useful initiative to bring Cecilia Sala back to Italy as soon as possible,” he said.
Iran has not admitted to detaining Sala. However, it may take several weeks for authorities to announce such arrests. Since the 1979 US embassy crisis, when dozens of hostages were released after 444 days in captivity, Iran has used prisoners with Western ties as bargaining chips in negotiations with other countries.