The Iranian regime arrested Italian journalist Cecilia Sala on Dec. 19, the Italian Foreign Ministry, which is “working with the Iranian authorities to clarify Cecilia Sala’s legal situation and to verify the conditions of her detention,” stated on Friday.
Paola Amadei, the Italian ambassador to Iran, “paid a consular visit to verify the conditions and status of Sala’s detention,” the Italian government stated.
“The journalist’s family was informed of the outcome of the consular visit. Earlier, Sala was allowed to make two phone calls with her relatives,” it added.
Jonathan Harounoff, international spokesman for Israel’s mission to the United Nations in New York, told JNS that “for all the excitement about the Islamic Republic moderating with its new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, the regime is still supremely uninterested in engaging with the West, in having a free and open media environment and in providing its own people with the freedoms and rights afforded to their counterparts elsewhere in the world.”
Harounoff, the author of the forthcoming book Unveiled, about the woman-led protest movement in Iran, told JNS that “this is the same regime that has exported a dangerous antisemitic, anti-Israel, anti-American ideology that has upended the Middle East even since Iran-backed Hamas terrorists raped, butchered and kidnapped their way through southern Israel.”
“The kidnapping of Cecilia Sala is just the latest example of a brutal and cruel regime that shows little regard for human life,” he added.
Jason Brodsky, policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, wrote that “Tehran is trying to leverage more foreign hostages for concessions.”
“Until there are real costs imposed for this behavior, Iran has every incentive to continue,” he wrote.
The International Federation of Journalists, which represents more than 600,000 journalists in 146 countries, called for the journalist’s release.
“We deplore Iran’s tactics of imprisoning foreign journalists in order to get something in return,” stated Anthony Bellanger, general secretary of the federation. “Our Italian colleague Cecilia Sala, who was in the country on assignment, is the latest victim of this macabre practice.”
“We call on the international community to put pressure on the Iranian authorities to release the journalist immediately,” Bellanger added.
