Italy working ‘tirelessly’ to bring home Cecilia Sala detained in Iran

Italy is working “tirelessly” to bring home a journalist who has been under arrest in Iran for more than a week, the country said on Friday.

Cecilia Sala, 29, who works for the newspaper Il Foglio and the podcast company Chora Media, was detained in Tehran on December 19 but her arrest was only made public on Friday.

The Italian foreign ministry said it was in contact with Iran to clarify Ms Sala’s legal situation and the conditions of her detention, while politicians of all stripes expressed their concern.

“Italy is working tirelessly to free her, pursuing every option,” Defence Minister Guido Crosetto – a key figure in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government – wrote on the social media platform X, calling the arrest “unacceptable”.

Chora Media said Ms Sala had left Rome for Iran on December 12 with a valid journalist visa and had conducted several interviews and produced three episodes of her “Stories” podcast.

She had been due to fly back to Rome on December 20.

It added that Ms Sala was being held in solitary confinement in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison and no reason had been given for her arrest.

There was no immediate confirmation of the arrest by Iranian officials.

It was not clear whether it might be linked to tensions between Rome and Tehran after Iran last week summoned a senior Italian diplomat and the Swiss ambassador, who represents U.S interests in the country, over the arrest of two Iranian nationals.

One of the men was arrested in Italy at Washington’s request.

Italy’s ambassador to Iran visited Ms Sala in prison on Friday and the journalist has also been in phone contact with her family, the Italian foreign ministry said.

‘Physically fine’

Italian sources with knowledge of the matter said she was “very tired” but “physically fine”.

Chora said news of Ms Sala’s arrest was not immediately made public as her family and Italian authorities had hoped that keeping it quiet could help secure her swift release.

Elly Schlein, leader of the centre-left opposition Democratic Party, urged the government to act swiftly.

“We immediately call on the government to take every useful initiative to shed light on this matter, to clarify the reasons for this detention and, above all, to bring Cecilia Sala back to Italy as soon as possible,” she said.

Iran has not acknowledged detaining Ms Sala. However, it can take weeks before authorities announce such arrests.

Plotting to topple the Tehran regime

Since the 1979 U.S. Embassy crisis, which saw dozens of hostages released after 444 days in captivity, Iran has used prisoners with Western ties as bargaining chips in negotiations with the world.

British-Iranian citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was detained in Iran in April 2016 while visiting family in Iran with her then-22-month-old daughter.

She was sentenced to five years in prison after being found guilty of plotting to topple the Tehran regime and was only released in March 2022 after Britain paid an outstanding debt of £393.8 million to Iran.

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe has said she spent almost 1,800 days in Evin prison.

‘Woman, Life, Freedom’

More recently, the prison has been used by the Tehran regime to detain thousands of people connected to the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests that were sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September 2022.

She died while in police custody after being arrested for allegedly breaking Iran’s strict laws which require women to wear the hijab.

A report by the BBC this month shared accounts of women who had been detained in the prison.

The British broadcaster shared the story of one woman by the name of Nasim. It said she was interrogated for 10 to 12 hours every day, threatened with execution and kept in solitary confinement for four months.

While in her cramped cell, she could hear what sounded like other prisoners being tortured, the BBC said.