Human Rights
Tehran's pressure tactics on display with Italian journalist's detention
Iranian authorities are holding Italian journalist Cecilia Sala on vague charges in an apparent attempt to use her for 'hostage diplomacy.'
![Italian journalist Cecilia Sala is seen in a photograph taken September 16, 2023. [Andrea Merola/ANSA/AFP]](/gc3/images/2025/01/06/48691-Cecilia-Sala-journalist-370_237.webp)
By Fariba Raad |
The Iranian regime has signaled it intends to use Italian journalist Cecilia Sala, detained in Tehran's Evin Prison since December 19, as leverage for the exchange of a sanctioned Iranian national who is being held in Italy.
The incident is the latest example of the regime's hostage diplomacy.
Sala, 29, who writes for Il Foglio and hosts a news podcast produced by Chora Media, travelled to Iran December 13 on a journalist visa.
Iranian authorities confirmed her detention and accused her of "violating the laws of the Islamic Republic," without providing specific charges.
Italy's foreign ministry on January 2 summoned Iran's ambassador in Rome to demand Sala's immediate release and respect for her human rights.
The Italian foreign ministry and Iranian ambassador discussed Sala — as well as Iranian national Mohammad Abedininajafabadi (aka Mohammad Abedini), who was arrested in Milan December 16, AFP reported.
Abedininajafabadi was arrested at the request of US authorities, who want him for supplying drone navigation technology to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) used in a January 2024 attack on a US military outpost in Jordan.
Harsh conditions
According to Italian media reports, Sala is enduring harsh conditions in Evin, which the US blacklisted in 2018 for "serious human rights abuses."
She has been sleeping on the floor of a cramped, freezing solitary confinement cell with constant lighting, and her glasses have been confiscated.
A care package provided by Rome's ambassador to Tehran had not been passed on to her as of January 2, AFP reported.
Rights groups accuse Tehran of systematically arresting foreigners for concessions. Thomson Reuters' Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and the Washington Post's Jason Rezaian are among the journalists who have been detained at Evin.
In a December 18 report on conditions inside the prison, the BBC revealed that prisoners endure extreme temperatures in overcrowded cells, while solitary confinement cells lack beds or toilets.
"Arrested journalists are kept in windowless cells and suffer physical and psychological torture to extract false confessions," an Iran-based journalist told Pishtaz, requesting anonymity.
"Interrogations can last between 10 and 12 hours a day."
Current inmates report threats of execution during interrogations, with guards taunting prisoners by making them listen to others being tortured, the BBC said.
With the power of its regional proxies diminished, "the Iranian regime is utterly desperate to gain levers for political pressure," the Iranian journalist said.
As international pressure mounts for Sala's release, Il Foglio's declaration that "journalism is not a crime" has become a rallying cry against Tehran's hostage diplomacy.
"Cecilia was in Iran, with a valid visa, to cover a country she knows and loves, a country where information is stifled through repression, threats, intimidation, violence and detentions," Il Foglio said.
This is a false article in every sense of the word, which can only be the work of Pahlavi supporters with their terrible prisons where they were tortured for fun, or the work of dishonorable hypocrites who restored the reputation of every dishonorable person in the world a little when they saw these dishonorable traitors flaying people alive and putting iron on their bodies after they had skinned them.. They’ve outdone even the hyenas ..... Go, you dishonorable, treacherous traitors, you have no respect for your own pride.
Hello, this foreign journalist should be executed. This is my personal opinion because he is a counter-revolutionary of Iran.
I hope these statements are not true. There is also a possibility that they will try to disrupt the friendly relations between the two countries/According to the late Fanizadeh in the series "Dear Uncle Napoleon" one’s grave is just steps away.
Well, when these people spy under the name of journalists, you expect them to be honored and appreciated. The result is an arrest and trial. Fair’s fair, no need to fuss.
Well done to the Islamic Republic.
Long live the Islamic Republic.
The rule of the old bastard clergies along with vile British colonialism, ruined Iran.
The fact that this text is very biased and the international community is stifled in the face of the child-killing Israeli regime does not distort the essence of the issue, which is retaliation for the freedom of the Iranian held in custody.
All of the news is lies and slander.
What are you looking for? The greatest massacre and genocide in history is being carried out by the Israeli murderers with the support of you Europeans. Now you are looking to build a case against arresting a spy in Iran. Rest assured, you will not get anywhere with this mischief.
Hello, France took several million from the Iranian government during the Qajar era to support Iran against the Russian attack on us, but they just took the money and did nothing!!! Do you have any explanation for the story of the AIDS-infected blood??? What about the Mirage planes you gave to Saddam???
Your report was completely biased, and it's a shame that you only report everything in favor of foreigners. You forgot that several of our compatriots were held in foreign prisons for years for their good service to America in their countries, and even caused them to become disabled. So don't think too much about these inhuman liars.
Nazanin Zaghari!: When the whole world knows the situation, why would it send its citizens to Iran?! So all of this has been planned and these things are being done according to the collusions.
Hello, these dear friends who are portraying the country's situation as bleak, thinking that people from outside will come and save them, are deeply mistaken.
If you don't see the situation in Iran as bad, you are either a thief or an accomplice to a thief, which is one of the characteristics of being born a bastard.