OAN Staff Blake Wolf
2:15 PM – Thursday, January 2, 2025
Italy’s foreign ministry came down on Iran’s ambassador on Thursday, demanding the release of Cecilia Sala, an Italian journalist who was detained in Iran on December 19th.
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Sala, a well-known journalist working for the Il Foglio daily newspaper, has been held in solitary confinement in Tehran for reportedly “violating the Islamic laws,” according to its state-run media.
Sala was on a journalistic visa during her visit and she has reportedly dealt with extremely harsh conditions in the Evin prison, being forced to sleep on the cold floor of her cell without a mattress.
Sala also reportedly spoke to her parents over the phone, explaining that a bright neon light has been on in her cell all day and night. Sala continued, telling them that she is being given food through a crack in the door, and that she has only received two blankets, one to sleep on and one to keep herself warm.
The foreign ministry added that during a meeting with Iran’s ambassador in Rome, Mohammad-Reza Sabouri, they requested that Sala receive “dignified detention conditions that respect human rights,” and to allow Italy’s ambassador to Iran to be able to visit Sala and “provide her with the types of comfort that have so far been denied.”
“The news of her conditions of detention are alarming,” stated Italy’s opposition Democrat Party. “The inhuman treatment she is undergoing is unacceptable.”
A U.S. state department spokesperson noted that Sala’s arrest was essentially a bargaining chip for the December 16th arrest of Mohammad Abedini Najafabadi, a Swiss-Iranian businessman and reported arms trafficker with ties to the Iranian regime.
Najafabad was reportedly involved in the January 28th, 2024, drone attack in Jordan, resulting in the death of three American soldiers.
“Unfortunately, the Iranian regime continues to unjustly detain citizens of many other countries, often using them as political leverage,” the spokesperson stated in an interview with La Repubblica.
The Evin prison that Sala is being held at is notorious for holding political prisoners, including journalists, foreign citizens, and individuals critical of the Iranian regime.
Narges Mohammadi, the vice president of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, is one of the most well known prisoners in the facility, and she previously won the 2023 Iranian Nobel peace prize laureate. She has previously said that she is working on a book to delve into the stories of the women who have been detained as political targets in the repressive country.
“I’ve finished my autobiography and I plan to publish it. I’m writing another book on assaults and sexual harassment against women detained in Iran. I hope it will appear soon,” she stated.
She continued, also describing the physical toll she suffered during her time at the Evin prison.
“My body is weakened, it is true, after three years of intermittent detention … and repeated refusals of care that have seriously tested me, but my mind is of steel,” she stated.
“I have personally documented cases of torture and serious sexual violence against my fellow prisoners,” Mohammadi added. “It is a place where political prisoners die.”
Iran has long utilized the tactic of imprisoning Western citizens to be used as bargaining chips ever since the 1979 U.S. Embassy crisis in Iran, which resulted in over a dozen U.S. hostages spending 444 days in Iranian cells.
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