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Middle East|Italian Journalist Is Detained While Reporting in Iran
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/27/world/middleeast/cecilia-sala-italian-journalist-arrested-iran.html
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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.
Dec. 27, 2024, 10:26 a.m. ET
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 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 did not show up at Tehran’s airport, Italy’s foreign ministry said.
Claudio Cerasa, the editor of the Italian newspaper Il Foglio, which Ms. Sala writes for, wrote in an editorial that she was in Iran on a regular visa. Il Post, an Italian news website where Ms. Sala’s partner, Daniele Raineri, works as a journalist, reported that Ms. Sala was in solitary confinement in Evin, a detention facility in Tehran where hundreds of dissidents and political prisoners are held.
