After Iran elected a moderate president last year, Cecilia Sala, an Italian journalist, thought that something had changed in the country, which she has been writing from afar.
For two years, Iran refused his request for a journalist visa, but granted him another one after the election. Colleagues and friends told him that Iran’s new government appears to be more open to foreign journalists as it seeks to mend relations with Europe.
Ms Sala, 29, has not been to Iran since 2021, before the uprising led by women and girls demanding an end to clerical rule. So he took a flight to Tehran, the capital.
“I wanted to see with my own eyes what has changed,” he said in a recent interview in Rome.
Instead, he saw firsthand what had not changed.
On December 19, as he was preparing an episode of his daily Italian podcast, two agents of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps intelligence service came to his hotel room in Tehran. When he tried to grab his phone, someone threw it in another room.
They blindfolded her, Ms. Sala said, and took her to the notorious Evin prison, where most of Iran’s political prisoners are held and some are tortured.
At one point, when he asked what he was accused of, he was told that he had committed “many illegal acts in many places.”
Iran has used the detention of foreign and dual citizens as a cornerstone of its foreign policy for almost fifty years, since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Some countries exchange prisoners and frozen funds for free.
Mrs. Sala was afraid from the beginning that she was kidnapped because of the exchange.
He said he learned that Italy arrested an Iranian engineer three days ago at the request of the United States. The engineer, Mohammad Abedini Najafabadi, was wanted for his role in providing drone technology to Iran that was used in an attack that killed three American soldiers in Jordan.
“I was trapped in a game much bigger than myself,” he said.
Ms. Sala said she is worried that if the United States insists on retaliating against Mr. Abedi, may remain in prison for years, his release depends on the decision of the next president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.
In Evin, guards gave Ms Sala a prison uniform, she said – a gray tracksuit, a blue shirt and trousers, a blue hijab and a long covering known as a chador. Hold the glasses, otherwise you can’t see in the eyes.
His cell had two blankets and no mattress or pillow. The lamp was still on, he said he couldn’t even sleep.
It was only a few days later, when he examined the inch-by-inch walls of his light yellow cell, that he saw bloodstains, corresponding marks, he said, perhaps left by a former inmate marking the dates, and the word “freedom” in Farsi.
He was blindfolded during interrogation almost every day as he sat facing the wall, he said.
His interrogator spoke perfect English, he said, and showed his knowledge of Italy by asking if he preferred Roman or Neapolitan pizza crust.
She was allowed to speak to her parents and her boyfriend in Italy sometimes, she said, and when her mother told reporters there about her daughter’s conditions in prison, the detective told Ms. Sala that because of those words, Iran would imprison her. for a very long time.
“Their game is to give hope, and then use your hope to break it,” said Ms. Sala.
Through a small crack in his door, he said he heard the sound of crying, vomiting, footsteps and banging that sounded like someone running and hitting his head on the door.
“I thought that if they didn’t release me, I would end up like this,” said Ms. Sala. He was afraid that if they kept him for a long time, he said, “I will come back as an animal, not a man.”
On Jan. 8, Ms. Sala was on a flight home, and soon after, Italy released Mr. Abedini. Ms Sala was freed in part with the help of Elon Musk, two Iranian officials said. “I played a small role,” Mr. Musk later wrote in X.
Ms Sala said she was looking forward to returning to her job.
“I’m in a hurry to get back to being a journalist,” he said. “Telling someone else’s story.”
His plight has reverberated around the world, especially among journalists who want to go to Iran.
“Obviously, I’m not going back to Iran,” said Ms. Sala. “At least as long as there is an Islamic Republic.”
Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting from New York.
Source link
