By Fariba Raad | 2025-01-06

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.